


The Mouth of Another Animal

by waspabi



Series: Young Guns [1]
Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-10
Updated: 2018-03-10
Packaged: 2019-03-19 08:44:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 45,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13700979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waspabi/pseuds/waspabi
Summary: Every sin is a goal against, Alex thinks, and has to grind his teeth together before he starts laughing. Under that rubric the Navy boasts a high-scoring moral fibre with a truly awful goal differential. Feels about right.He glances at Nicklas, the delicate ridge of his nose, his glazed expression. If he’s a sin, Alex’s moral defense is three pylons and an empty net.





	The Mouth of Another Animal

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Before the Fall](https://archiveofourown.org/works/528348) by [ionthesparrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ionthesparrow/pseuds/ionthesparrow). 



> This is essentially a Caps AU of [Hockey at the End of the World](http://archiveofourown.org/series/23361) by ionthesparrow. It is possible to read this story without reading the original series, but the original series is excellent, so I'd recommend it to you anyway. 
> 
> Following the source material, I've compressed the 2007-2008 and the 2008-2009 seasons into one hybrid experience, which necessitates a certain amount of deviating from reality but uh, way less than you'd think, especially for a dystopian universe. I've also made a few other changes for my own enjoyment or in the interest of reading comprehension, and if you're interested in how that breaks down, you'll be treated to expanded notes at the end. 
> 
> Thanks to Hockey Coven (Eva, Rave and Catie) for the beta, brainstorming and enthusiastic reading, as always you guys are gems.
> 
> Warnings for xenophobia, objectification of our athletes, some off-screen violence and some on-ice violence. Also unrealistically rapid progression towards language proficiency, because leave me alone.

Before I leave here, I want  
to hear my name change in the mouth  
  
of another animal.

  
_(Alex Dimitrov, "All Souls' Day")_

 

 

Nicklas intends to bury himself in the minors. He’s heard the stories: if he wants to stay alive, the minors are his best bet. The food will be worse, but they won’t watch him so much, and fewer people will try to kill him on the ice.

It’s all anyone in the holding cell can talk about: the transfer agreement, and the Draft.

“Trust me, Nicklas,” one of the other prisoners tells him. “Take the deal. They’ll ship you over, you play good but not _so_ good.”

“Is that what you’ll do?”

The guy shakes his head. “The Union wants young men. They’ll let you try out. If you fail… Don’t fail. You can skate?”

Nicklas can skate. He’d been by far the best hockey player at his assignment center. One of the North American teams will take him. He won’t fail; his trouble will be nailing the sweet spot just after _good enough_. The guy’s right. Nicklas doesn’t want the majors. He wants to fade away in the minor leagues, maybe work out a way to escape, if he’s lucky.

“Escape? Oh, god,” the guy says, laughing. “You _are_ a young man, aren’t you?”

Nicklas ignores him. He has a plan.

The plan works until five minutes into his first drill. He can’t throw the damn thing. It’s in his best interest to lose, but he can’t force himself to lose to these—these _nothings_. Fuck, some of them can barely skate. A couple definitely don’t know how to stop: they plow straight into the boards when they want to slow down.

And these _men_ , the men in polo shirts, the men in track jackets taking notes on their clipboards. Nicklas can’t hurt them, but he can wield his stick so they know he’s thinking about it. He puts the puck in the net, once, twice, three times.

Guards bring Nicklas to another rink, watch him play, knock him out, wake him up in another rink where the letters are wrong. He’s been on an airplane now, he supposes. He remembers standing in the factory field staring up at the merciless grey bowl of the sky, consumed by the impossible roar of jets hurtling overhead. He had wanted to be one of them. Untethered, screaming.

More men with clipboards watch him skate. He’s corralled like cattle with a horde of similarly-shaped young men, herded onto cold metal bleachers until someone calls their name and they stumble onto a lit stage to collect a jersey. Nicklas doesn’t wait long. Guards bring Nicklas back, knock him out again, wake him up somewhere new.

No one knocks him out again for a week and a half, so Nicklas figures he’ll be staying for a while. The signs read HERSHEY and the air smells sweet: a factory nearby, this team to entertain the workers. It isn’t so different from home. 

Nicklas keeps to himself off the ice. No one speaks his language. Sometimes another import drops a word or two in Swedish and Nicklas’s whole body jerks to attention, but they never know more than the one word, shoved gracelessly into their mishmash language with the accent all wrong. Strange words, no pattern to them: _tree_ or _picture_ or _shit_.

Sometimes one of the guys tries to speak to him. The imports, mostly, but Nicklas doesn’t want to know them. He doesn’t want to learn their language. He wants to burn a hole in the chainlink fence that edges their complex and run off into the woods.

He can’t be hasty. He has to prepare. If he runs now, with nowhere to go, with no supplies, he’ll freeze to death in the night. 

The sun is hotter here than in Gävle. In June there’s only a light dusting of snow, the long stretches of dirty snowdrifts slowly melting along the roadside. Maybe he wouldn’t freeze, maybe he’d get away with a little frostbite and his life. Nicklas paces the outer edges of the compound during their scant free time and considers his options, bides his time.

Voices blur to ambient sounds. People flatten to paper dolls. Nicklas understands nothing but the ice, the sharp cut of his blades, his bed at the end of the day.

He tries to nurse his anger. He tries to burn his grief down into a small glowing coal and keep it deep in his body. He skates hard enough he tastes blood in his mouth. He runs the perimeter of the complex instead of walking, inhaling the strange sweet air, letting the burn of his muscles consume his brain and leave nothing behind.

Nicklas starts to think he’s staying, and then men in polo shirts shove him and a few other guys into a van one night and drive them south. They pull them out at the border and scan their tags, check the stark black barcodes tattooed onto their chests.

The men keep saying _Navy_. Nicklas supposes that’s where they’re heading. The Navy.

* * *

Washington is in the midst of an unusually warm June when when Alex first hears about Nicklas Bäckström.

The heaters have shut down for the offseason but incredibly, Alex can’t see his breath in the training room. He feels comfortable in shorts without putting in an hour of cardio first. Alex puts his head down and bikes harder, feeling George and Ted’s eyes on him. Ted takes a special interest. Not all owners do.

George eyes the timer on the front of Alex’s bike. “How’s training coming along, Alex? You’re liking our new bikes?”

“Yes, they’re good,” Alex lies. “Best in the Union.”

Alex hates the stationary bike. He hates the cold tub, the diet plan, the gym, but he reserves most of his irritation for the bike. Of course he still rides the damn thing, he isn’t stupid, but pedaling and pedaling and going nowhere rubs his nerves to dust.

It’s nice that Ted and George come to see them, really. It breaks up the monotony.

“He’s so big,” Ted tells George, beaming. He pats Alex’s shoulder. “I forget every time how big he is. He’s an incredible specimen.”

Alex smiles, nods. He feels Sema’s glare from across the room. He smiles bigger, to make sure Ted and George keep looking at him.

“I can feel his heart pumping, George. This kid is a racehorse.” Ted shakes his head, pleased, his polo shirt showing his conspicuously undecorated neck.

Ted would have never worn PerT tags, but Alex doesn’t know about George. Does he feel strange in his grey suit in front of a room of players? His job bars him from the room, of course, but more than that it’s his bare throat. Even the North Americans get a little uncomfortable.

George glances at his watch. “We may have found you a center, Alex. Did anyone tell you?”

Alex slows his pace. “A center? Nylander?”

George shakes his head. “Still injured. This one’s young. New. Imported.”

“From where?”

Ted laughs. “Russia, where else? It’s where we get our best assets.” He leans back on his heels and surveys the room. All the native guys went home for the summer, so it’s only imports left. On the Navy that’s half the team. Ted’s team.

“I’ll go say hello to your other half,” he muses, and makes his way towards Sema. “We want him to step it up this season, don’t we? Not so many silly penalties.”

Alex suppresses a wince.

George watches Ted wander off. “Sweden.”

“What?”

“Your center, we got him out of Sweden. He’ll be here soon.”

Soon turns out to be July for development camp, delivered in a black van with the rest of the hopefuls. Alex watches the guards escort him out from the common room window. He has soft cheeks and bright hair and a suspicious, shuttered expression. Guards take him straight to temporary housing before Alex can get a better look.

He shows up the next morning with the other prospects: a cluster of wide-eyed North Americans grasping for their shot out of Hershey, two Czech infants and Bäckström. Alex is suddenly, piercingly delighted to tag along to dev camp. Maybe the whole thing had been a waste of time an hour ago, but Coach is right. It’s good to get the practice in, and to get to know the potential players. Good for the team. Good for his conditioning.

Alex maneuvers himself into a space next to Bäckström in the locker room. “Hello. I’m Alex.”

Bäckström continues glaring into the middle distance, so Alex tries Import. Nothing. Real Russian will be useless, of course, if he’s Swedish, so he doesn’t bother. He scans the room. Juice is Slovak, that won’t help. The baby Czechs must have tried their language already, so Flash is out. Maybe he could get Kolzig to try German.

“Good luck with him,” one of the baby Czechs mutters. “He bit a guy up in Hershey.”

Alex looks at Bäckström’s pointy face with interest. He imagines he has very neat, small teeth.

Alex picked up a few choice Swedish words from Nylander over the summer but he’s pretty sure they’d get him sent straight to solitary if he said them anywhere within earshot of a Morality Officer. He turns his back to the camera at the corner of the room, and repeats them anyway. 

Bäckström darts a look at him. His eyes are glass green.

Alex tries a smile. Bäckström spits on the ground and resume his glare into the middle distance.

“No good? I’ll try those on our opponents, then,” Alex tells him. Bäckström hasn’t moved towards his equipment. He hasn’t even taken anything off the hooks. “You know how everything works?”

No answer.

Alex eyes the baby Czechs. “He knows how it works?”

“He was in Hershey this summer,” the other baby Czech says, which isn’t much of an answer.

Alex points to his chest protector and then to Bäckström’s undershirt, baggy over his chest. “Yes? Da?”

Bäckström sullenly pulls gear out of his stall and suits up, everything in the right place but sloppy, like he isn’t quite accustomed to the fit. Not a career player, then. A little new.

“Your skates,” Alex says, when he’s finished. “Backy, wait, not yet.” He tugs Bäckström back down, wondering if he’s about to get bit. Probably. Bäckström bares his teeth: small and neat. No missing places. “Skates.” Alex kneels in front of him and taps the laces. “Not tight enough. You’ll get hurt.”

Bäckström glowers at him.

Alex unties Bäckström’s skates and redoes them, nice and snug around Bäckström’s surprisingly narrow ankles. He used to do Sema’s skates like this when they were young. The motions feel easy, familiar. He pulls the laces taut and recites every word for _skate_ he’s ever learned. “Skates. Kon’ki. Korčule. Brusle. Skridsko.”

Bäckström’s eyes flicker.

“Skridsko? Is that it?”

Bäckström narrows his eyes at him. “Da,” he says, flat.

Alex grins. “Skridsko. Da.” He pats Bäckström’s skates. “All ready.”

One of the baby Czechs tentatively touches Bäckström’s arm, nods towards the exit. Bäckström doesn’t look like the sort of person someone ought to be wary of, but clearly the baby Czechs think so. Bäckström glowers and they make a hasty exit towards the rink, Bäckström clomping reluctantly after them.

God, he’s going to forget his blade guards before he gets onto the ice, isn’t he? Alex has to hurry up.

Sema catches his elbow at the door. “Your jersey, Sasha,” he says in Russian. “You like the Swede so much?”

Alex makes a face and shoves Sema to the side. “We need a good center.”

Sema’s mouth quirks into a mocking smile and Alex cuts him off before he can talk. “Eyes,” he reminds him, and tilts his head towards the corner of the room. “You don’t need to make the joke, anyway. I can hear you in my sleep.”

 _We don’t need a good center, we need a sharp knife. We need three liters of kerosene and a match. We need blessed death to take us in our sleep_.

The details change, but the joke remains the same. Sema has been telling the same one since they were kids. Alex doesn’t need a replay.

Coach Boudreau runs drills with bombastic force, one line peeling out after another, his voice shouting them along the whole time. Bäckström can’t possibly understood a word, but he watches everybody and follows along.

Bäckström skates with impossible grace. Each stride melds into the next, his turns are exact, his speed fluid. He’s a little clumsy with his stick, but most players are, at first. They’re so different from the wooden ones.

“Ovi!” Ted waves from the sidelines. He’s wearing a heavy camel wool coat over his suit, and his breath puffs out pale as his crisp white shirt. “Alex!”

Alex skates over, catching himself on the boards.

“What do you think?” Ted nods at Bäckström skating slow figure eights at the far end of the rink. “We thought he might be a diamond in the rough. Wonderful for you and Semin, yes?”

Alex nods. “He’s a good skater.”

“No English yet, am I right? That always makes things a little tricky. He’ll learn. You did!” Ted beams, proud as if Alex was a precocious child.

“I’ve been here a long time,” Alex says, thinking of Bäckström baring his sharp teeth in the locker room. “It may take him a little while.”

“Let’s hope he’s as bright as you, then.” Ted chuckles. “Our poor other Alex, he’s never quite managed it, has he? At least he has you.”

Sema understands English perfectly well, though Alex doesn’t think Ted notices. George, maybe. He has a keener eye. “Yes,” Alex agrees. He glances at the ice. Bäckström is watching them, eyes sharp in his rounded face. “Is Nylander any closer to coming back?”

“Nylander?” Ted frowns. “It’s that shoulder of his, isn’t it? No, he’s still on IR.”

“Maybe he might help Bäckström a little. For drills, and so on. They speak the same language.”

Ted frowns again, and Alex’s stomach squirms. Ted likes to indulge him, but that doesn’t mean Alex can’t step over the line. “Alex, you know the laws. We speak English in the Union.”

“Just a thought,” Alex adds, forcing a laugh. “So we can get him started on English, you know? He can’t tell right from left now. He’s gonna pass the puck to the wrong team.”

Ted chortles, shaking his head. “Well, alright. I’ll see what George thinks. Russians! You all have so many dialects.”

Alex exhales.

Import quarters are loud, busy. Sema’s kicking a football in the corridor and Flash is watching Don Cherry with the volume up high; Alex isn’t totally sure why he’s busting his eardrums until he sees Feds with his strange-looking tattoo tools in the corner directly under the camera. Juice is sprawled out on the chair in front of him; Feds is marking up his thigh.

Alex wanders over to watch. He’s never understood the tattoos, really, but it’s cool to watch the needle go into the skin. “What is it?”

“A fish,” Juice grunts, sweating.

Alex squints at the shape. “Oh yeah?”

“Shut the fuck up, it’s going to be a fish.” Juice covers his face. “Kinda regret asking for it so big, though.”

Feds pauses and raises his eyebrow up at Alex. “You want one, Sasha?”

“Nah,” Alex says, like he always does. He’s half-naked on camera way too much. Ted and George wouldn’t like it. “Have you seen Nylander?”

“Injured,” Feds says, turning his attention back to Juice’s leg.

Alex pokes around import quarters. Nylander’s not in his room, he’s not smoking on the roof-deck, he’s not in the kitchen. The guy’s never been particularly sociable, and normally Alex is perfectly willing to let him ignore all of them except on the ice, but he wants to know if he’s been to see Bäckström.

The guy’s nowhere. Alex goes to play football with Sema. If the ball goes into Nylander’s room and breaks a lamp, it’s just a coincidence.

* * *

A guard with rank breath and lank hair pulls Nicklas from his bed the next morning and for a split second Nicklas assumes he’s on the move again. Away from temporary housing and back to Hershey, maybe, but Halitosis Guard doesn’t take him down towards the street, towards the vans. He drags Nicklas up through a maze of corridors, deeper and deeper into the ice center. Not Hershey. Something else.

Halitosis Guard shoves Nicklas through an open door into a medical room and announces something in terse English.

A bald man with blue eyes and a worn face glances up at him, wincing as the trainer presses his shoulder.

Nicklas doesn’t know what they’re doing here. He feels fine. He isn’t injured. Do they think he’s injured?

Bald Guy says something, mouth pursed.

Halitosis Guard shrugs and leaves, shutting the door behind him. There’s no visible doorknob, just like the door of the dorm they put him in.

Bald Guy doesn’t say anything, and the trainer doesn’t say anything, and Nicklas couldn’t say anything even if he fucking wanted to. What the fuck was he brought here for?

He stands where he’d been put, scowling at the bare white wall. What the fuck is he meant to do in this situation? Wait? The trainer doesn’t have to look him over. He had a full medical when he arrived, a humiliating exercise in pretending he was disembodied for forty-five minutes.

The trainer finishes up with Bald Guy and helps him into a sling. Nicklas sets his jaw and prepares himself for another examination.

“You’re with me,” Bald Guy says, jerking his head.

Nicklas freezes. His eyes water involuntarily. Language, oh, god. He doesn’t know if he still remembers how to speak. “You speak Swedish?”

Bald Guy doesn’t answer. He sweeps past him into the corridor. “They want me to give you the tour.”

Nicklas jogs after him. Bald Guy walks fast. “Are you Swedish? What’s your name?”

Bald Guy keeps walking, eyes straight ahead. “Nylander.” 

“I’m Nicklas Bäckström. Where are you from? I’m from Gävle, or, just outside, Valbo, actually, at least before my assignment center. I—”

“I don’t want to hear about that,” Nylander says curtly. He pushes the button for the elevator. “They gave me permission to speak to you in Swedish so you know where to shit and where to sleep and how to tell someone to pass to you. We don’t talk about that.”

Words catch in Nicklas’s throat. He has to look away so his eyes don’t spill over.

Nylander glances at him, his jaw working. He sighs. “I’m from Stockholm,” he says, and steps onto the elevator. He holds the door for Nicklas.

Nicklas doesn’t want to push him, but he can’t quite hide his desperation. He wants to catch the Swedish words dropping from Nylander’s mouth and clutch them in his fingers like a child hoarding handfuls of smooth marbles. He wants to know if Nylander had a family, when he got here, how long he’s been with the Navy. Nylander doesn’t tell him. He tells him about the weight room and the bikes, the equipment closets and the English words for common injuries.

Nylander hardly ever looks at Nicklas directly. He looks just past his right ear, or slightly over his shoulder. He glances at him and then looks away, like the sight of Nicklas pains him.

The locker room is busy, but no one seems particularly eager to talk to Nylander when he shows up with Nicklas in tow.

“Imports here. North Americans over there,” Nylander explains, waving his uninjured arm at the far side of the room.

A cluster of guys laugh and toss tape at each other, tags swinging from their necks. Pure silver. No black edging, like Nylander and Nicklas. Nicklas scans the room. He hadn’t paid attention in Hershey. The black tags are just for the imports. The black tags, and the barcode tattoos.

Nylander keeps talking. “Some places, they don’t let you mix, but management here is… Not terrible. They can’t shut us all out, not when we’re most of the team. You landed with a decent organization, for an import. The new coach is soft, the general manager thinks we’re profitable and cheap. It’s not so bad.”

Nicklas’s eyes flick to the big Russian. He sits in his stall in tight leggings and nothing else, chatting with Old Russian next to him. Big Russian sits at the end of the row, always. He gets privileges the others don’t. Nicklas knows why. Nicklas has seen him play.

Big Russian keeps trying to talk to Nicklas. He wants to help him with his skates, his pads, his bowl at dinner. Nothing Nicklas does seems to dissuade him. Nicklas keeps trying to throw his game somehow, twist an ankle in loose skates and get sent back down, but Big Russian always catches him before he can go through with it.

“Alexander Ovechkin. Young, like you, but he’s been here a long time.”

“Big Russian,” Nicklas says. “Next to Old Russian and over there, Sneaky Russian and Very Old Russian.”

Nylander smiles, very small. “Old Russian is younger than me. Viktor Kozlov. Then Alexander Semin, and Sergei Fedorov. They call the sneaky one Sema, or Sanya. Ovechkin is Alex. You play with them?”

Nicklas nods. He’s only had a few practices but the coach seemed to like Ovechkin on his left, Semin on his right. It’s—of course, he hates them. He hates the building, he hates the rink, he hates the coaches. He hates them, but Ovechkin and Semin skate like nothing he’s ever seen.

Ovechkin looks up. Nicklas feels it in his whole body when their eyes meet, the shocking intimacy of his pale blue eyes.

“That’s enough for today, Bäckström. Time to change for practice.”

Nicklas breaks eye contact with Ovechkin to stare at Nylander. “What? You’re not staying?” Desperation claws at Nicklas’s throat. Nylander can’t leave. Nicklas can’t stay here alone, mute and drowning in words he doesn’t understand.

Nylander looks carefully just above Nicklas’s right shoulder. “No injured players in the locker room. You’ll be fine.”

Nicklas watches Nylander leave and tries not to run after him, tries not to beg him to come back soon. Jesus, what was he expecting? Did he want Nylander to tell him a bedtime story, to tuck him in at night?

Nicklas sits down in his stall. He pulls on his shin guards, his socks, his pants. His hands shake.

Ovechkin kneels in front of him to help him with his skates again. “Shit,” he says quietly, in his terrible Swedish. “Fuck. Hell. Skate.”

“Skates,” Nicklas corrects, twitching both of his feet to explain.

“Skates,” Ovechkin repeats. He looks up, red lips, wide-set eyes. Scruffy beard, crooked nose. Enormous shoulders. Nicklas wants to bite his mouth. “Motherfucker.”

“You say that totally wrong,” Nicklas informs him, testing his skate. “Say it again. Motherfucker.”

Ovechkin can’t have understood what he said, but he repeats after him anyway, grinning like a thief. “Motherfucker.”

His accent isn’t any better, but Nicklas isn’t shaking anymore.

* * *

“I heard he burned down his whole town,” Sema informs Alex at dinner, pointing at Nicklas with his bread.

Alex scowls. “He’s right there. He can hear you.”

“He doesn’t speak Russian. No Russian, no Import, no English.” Sema takes a big bite and keeps talking, mouth full of soup and bread. “One of the little Czechs told me. He burned down his whole town, that’s how he got here.”

Alex pushes Sema’s chin up. “Don’t talk with your mouth full.”

Sema chews and swallows with exaggerated movements, grinning obnoxiously the whole time. “Aren’t you going to warn me away from him? You didn’t want me getting close to Zubie.”

Zubie got himself in trouble. Zubie would have got _Sema_ in trouble. Zubie disappeared in the middle of the night and they would have taken Sema with him if Alex hadn’t made sure he stayed in line. Alex watches Nicklas poke at his soup, checking under the potatoes like he’s looking for bugs. “He doesn’t speak Russian.”

“Yet,” Sema points out. “Mere months will pass and he’ll be inciting us all to violence and fire hazards. Aren’t you worried?”

“Or maybe we’ll win for once.”

“Games,” Sema drawls, derisive. “Okay, Sasha. We’ll win their games for them.”

Alex shoves Sema’s shoulder. He’ll have to get him some bathtub gin somehow, some shitty blackmarket vodka. He’s in one of his moods again. “Eat your food before I take it all, Sanya.”

For once Sema listens, possibly because he knows the threat is completely legitimate. Alex watches Nicklas take a cautious bite of soup across the table. He makes a displeased sort of face, but keeps eating anyway. Alex suppresses the desire to offer him the rest of his bread. 

A trainer makes his rounds to deliver clear plastic cups of multicolored pills, setting them next to their bowls. Alex takes all his at once with the ease of practice, seven or eight with a swig of water. Nicklas examines the scrawled nineteen on the side of his cup, his eyebrows drawn together.

“Take it,” the trainer tells him, reaching across the table to push the medicine cup towards his plate.

Sema swallows his in increments, examining each pill as he goes. “Ask the trainer what this one is for, Sasha,” he says, holding a large white pill between his thumb and forefinger. “It’s new.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Ask him yourself.”

Sema affects a significantly more laborious accent than he naturally has in English, the words scraping out of his mouth like sandpaper. “What is for?” He holds the pill up so the trainer can see.

“General health,” the trainer says curtly, still frowning at Nicklas. “Can you tell him to take his pills already? I’ve got to get through the other guys too.”

“To my general health.” Sema toasts and throws back his last pill, wincing. He’s always had trouble with the large ones. “Two small white, two orange, one grey, one big white. A well-rounded diet.”

Nicklas holds his medicine cup in one hand and stares at it. 

“Take,” Alex says, trying to demonstrate with his empty cup. He smiles encouragingly when he catches Nicklas’s eye.

Nicklas frowns.

“Oh for the love of—come on, Nineteen, it’s not rocket science.” The trainer reaches across the table and pours the pills into Nicklas’s left hand, puts his glass of water into his right. “Swallow them.”

Nicklas takes the pills one by one with minute sips of water.

“Finally,” the trainer mutters, and goes to hand pills out to the North Americans.

Nicklas surreptitiously brings his napkin to his mouth. When he takes it away, it’s conspicuously lumpy. He crumples it and puts it in his empty medicine cup.

Alex stares. Nicklas stares back, clear eyes challenging.

Sema laughs, high and sharp. “I’m telling you, Sasha. Mere months. Violence and fire hazards.”

When they file out of the cafeteria, Nicklas carefully drops his medicine cup in the trash under an extra handful of napkins. Alex’s stomach flips over, although he’s not entirely sure why. Maybe he’s afraid Nicklas will be caught. Everyone takes the pills.

* * *

A guard drags Nicklas out of bed long before either of the Czech guys have stirred. Nylander is waiting in the corridor outside. He looks tired, pale.

“They’re keeping you.” Nylander starts walking, and Nicklas breaks free of the guard to catch up. “Do you have any belongings?”

Nicklas shakes his head.

“No, I suppose you wouldn’t, with the way you got here. Keep up.”

Nylander navigates the endless spiraling corridors of the ice center with practiced ease. Nicklas hasn’t seen much of it yet: just the practice rink, the locker room, the line of bunks where they’ve been keeping him and the other rookie imports. A thousand questions bubble up inside him and he swallows them down; Nylander seems even tenser than the last time.

Their first stop is an office, followed by another office, followed by a wardrobe closet. A parade of North Americans chatter and move him around and touch his hair. He looks at Nylander for help, but he’s always studying some somber poster on the wall or looking out the window, occasionally saying something in English to whoever’s examining Nicklas.

A brunette woman with enormous eyes and enormous earrings prods Nicklas into a series of sweaters and takes his picture. Nicklas looks longingly at the door.

Nylander must take pity on him after that. “Last stop,” he says in the corridor. 

A technician unsnaps the PerT tags from the chain around his neck and runs them through the machine. She chatters the whole time and Nylander doesn’t offer a translation, so Nicklas catalogues the contents of the windowless room and waits for it to be over. Last stop, he tells himself. He can endure this. It’s better than the sweaters, anyway.

“Welcome to the Navy, kid,” Nylander says, as they leave. “You made the team. You’ve got full run of Verizon Center, and the city. Just be back before curfew.”

Nicklas blinks. “What?”

“Nine o’clock sharp, rookie. Don’t give them a reason to doubt you.”

“No, I meant… They let us go out? Without supervision?”

“They didn’t used to.” Nylander leads Nicklas at a fast clip over the skybridge, towards the secondary mass of the complex. “Then Ted Leonsis got his hands on his fattened calf. Ovechkin. Leonsis and McPhee have been very tolerant since then. A few permission slips and Washington is yours, for all the good that does you.”

Players’ quarters are at the west end of the top floor. North Americans to the right, imports to the left, a dusty common area in the middle.

Nicklas’s room is at the very end of the corridor. It’s small, but it has a door. Nicklas sits on the bed. _His_ bed, alone in a room with a door that shuts. Relief courses through him so strongly he nearly shudders.

“Doesn’t lock,” Nylander warns.

Cameras, then. Maybe. The Navy have splashed out on new gym equipment, a new practice rink, but he gets the impression that they’re not exactly rolling in money. The public areas may be clean and well-equipped, but the offices are grubby, and half the lesser-used corridors are missing overhead lights.

“Fedorov will get you for practice. Kitchen’s down the hall.” Nylander takes a breath like he’s going to say something more, and then lets it out in a noisy rush. He leaves without another word, shutting the door behind him. 

Nicklas touches the cold glass pane of the window. Nylander had said they could go _out_ but Nicklas doesn’t quite believe him. He had a wry look on his face, a slightly cruel tilt to his mouth. Nicklas pokes his way around players’ quarters until he finds his way out to the roof deck instead. It smells of cigarettes but there are benches, and he can see the sky.

Nicklas stands at the edge of the roof deck and presses his fingers to the windscreen. The street below is quiet, just a few clusters of grey pedestrians with their heads bent to the wind, but Verizon is full of people.

Nicklas clutches his PerT tags in his free hand, loathing the weight of them, the cut of the chain into his neck. Even when they’re not watching him, they’re watching him: every doorway is tracked, every archway, every building. He’ll never be able to get away. 

* * *

The baby Czechs go back to Hershey and Nicklas stays up. Alex has a good feeling about their line, even if Nicklas has no idea what he’s saying when he shouts _open, open_ during a drill.

It’s all going well, better than Alex expected, until Nicklas runs into Juice along the boards during a scrimmage. There’s the unmistakable _shwick_ of a sticking knife popping free, a flash of red and a second of shocked silence before Juice shouts and scrambles back.

“What the fuck is he doing,” Juice demands, his voice going high with panic. “It’s just practice, Jesus fuck!”

“Speak English, Milan,” Coach Boudreau reminds him, voice carefully even. He looks at Nicklas like he’s a feral dog in an alleyway, easily startled. “Alright, Backy just… Put that away for now, eh?”

Nicklas doesn’t move. 

“Down,” Coach says, making exaggerated movements with his arms. “Put it down.”

Nicklas lowers his stick, but doesn’t retract the blade.

“No blades at practice, son,” Coach says, loud and slow, going red along the ears and neck. Nicklas still doesn’t put the knife away. He’s looking down at it, eyes wide. “Go on, put it away.”

“He doesn’t know how,” Sema murmurs, close to Alex’s ear.

Alex skates over, every stride deliberately casual. “Remedial lesson for the rookie, Coach,” he tells him, smiling as impishly as he can manage. It seems to work, because Coach goes to talk to Juice about positioning and only shoots a worried look their way every couple of seconds.

“Sticking knife,” Alex explains, and touches Nicklas’s elbow. He jolts. “Okay? Yes?”

Nicklas looks lost. He frowns at Alex, and then down at his stick.

“I’ll show you.”

Alex moves slowly, wrapping Nicklas’s fingers around the shaft of the stick and holding them in place. Nicklas smells of sweat. The nape of his neck is wet, blond curls damp over his skin. Alex’s lips almost brush his hair.

“Down.” Alex twists their hands over the shaft of the stick and retracts the knife. He reverses the motion. “Up.” Nicklas is a solid weight against Alex’s chest, warm in the circle of his arms. Alex wishes they weren’t wearing helmets, or gloves. He wants to feel Nicklas’s small hands under his as he retracts the knife. His heart gallops in his ribcage. “Down.”

Alex takes his hands away and repeats the motion on his own stick, popping the knife up so that it shines silver under the fluorescent lights. He jabs the air, pantomiming an angry face. “Only during games. Serious. Yes?”

Nicklas replicates the motions. He pops his knife up, clumsily pokes at the air, and then retracts it. “Yes,” he says.

Alex shows Nicklas the catch to release his blade edge. He mimes a high stick and someone getting cut, screaming and dripping blood. “It’s sharp, so you’ve got to be careful. But it’s also good, right? Magnetic.” Alex swipes a puck and stick-handles around Nicklas, showing off. “You see? You can still pass, but the puck sticks pretty good.”

Nicklas narrows his eyes and steals the puck from under Alex’s feet with a clean swipe of his stick. He skates backward, holding it.

Alex’s heart can’t seem to slow down. He feels like he’s on a breakaway towards an empty net. He grins too big, laughs too loud. He doesn’t know what to do with the adrenaline pounding through his body so he checks Nicklas a little, just enough that he hits the boards.

“Play?” Alex taps his stick against the ice. “Yes?”

Nicklas watches Alex’s stick, then glances at his face. Alex can’t read him at all.

They play.

* * *

Nicklas is sharpening his skates in the equipment room when Nylander sidles up next to him, casual, like he’s waiting in line.

“Don’t get close to them,” he says conversationally in Swedish. He reaches over to get a fresh pair of laces.

Nicklas hasn’t seen Nylander in ages. He’s not wearing his sling. “What?”

“Any of them. Keep working on that; we’re discussing techniques.”

Nicklas edges his skate blade close to the sharpener. He keeps an eye out for the equipment manager; he doesn’t like Nicklas doing this. The last time he pushed Nicklas out of the room in a flood of incomprehensible English, flapping his hands.

“The Russians are deep in something. Stay out of it, stay away from them, stay alive. Oh—and if you’re that way, keep it to yourself here.”

Nicklas freezes. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I saw you with Ovechkin. You were a little close, wouldn’t you say?”

The press of Ovechkin’s body against his back, the heat of his breath on his neck, his voice rumbling through Nicklas’s ribcage. Nicklas grits his teeth. “He was showing me the stick.”

“I know what assignment centers are like in Sweden, Bäckström, and it’s not like that here. The Union is fond of capital punishment, and all of these boys play with knives.”

Nicklas keeps sharpening his stupid skate.

“Since we’re on the subject, be circumspect about masturbation. The North Americans want you chaste. They’re very literal here. God-fearing.” Nylander smiles; his eyes are cold. “Friendly advice from a countryman.”

Nylander leaves the spare laces behind when he goes. 

Nicklas stares at the black void of the ceiling after lights-out and takes one shallow breath after another. His brain is going to burn him alive. He can’t stop thinking about the sticking knife, the slick way it popped up, the glint of its sharp point. Nylander’s stupid warning. _The Russians are deep in something_. What, bullshit? Yellow skate laces? He works himself up until he’s nearly shaking with fury. _If you’re that way_. Fuck Nylander. Fuck the Navy. Fuck the North American Union.

He has to get out.

Nicklas should have worn socks. He eases his way down the corridor, wincing at the bare cold concrete. The doorways are dark and still, except for one. Nicklas knows who sleeps there. He opens the door.

Ovechkin is awake, reading a tattered paperback in the faded yellow glow of a flashlight. One long bare leg stretches out from under the pile of wool blankets. He frowns. “— — — — night?”

Nicklas can’t get a grasp on which words in their strange bastardized language are Swedish: so far he’s heard a lot of swearing and the odd noun. He shrugs and edges closer, eyes on Ovechkin’s hands. He hasn’t seen a book since he came to this hellhole country, not anything that didn’t look specifically designed to educate the public. Somebody has torn the cover off. The title underneath is long, full of incomprehensible Russian letters: doubly illegal, then.

Nicklas thinks about the obliging way Ovechkin leaned down to listen to every oily thing Ted Leonsis said during practice. He hadn’t known Ovechkin did things he wasn’t supposed to. He wonders what other rules Ovechkin breaks at night.

“— — —, — — — — — — —?” Ovechkin looks up at him, an oddly hopeful smile quirking his mouth. He looks different here. Soft. Open.

Nicklas curls his toes up. He’s going to do something probably stupid, but he can’t stop himself. He licks his lips to catch Ovechkin watching his mouth. It’s so easy. Ovechkin’s eyes linger on Nicklas’s mouth and a jolt of satisfaction resonates through his whole body. “Da?”

Ovechkin smiles a little, confused. “Da? — — —?”

Nicklas sits on Ovechkin’s narrow bed. He has the same navy blue door that Nicklas has, the same neat square window, the same minuscule desk, but the room feels smaller. Ovechkin takes up so much space.

Nicklas eyes Ovechkin from underneath his eyelashes. He touches his knee, thick heavy bone. His skin radiates heat under Nicklas’s palm and they both watch his hand move up, up, until his fingertips brush the blankets covering Ovechkin’s lap.

“Da?” Nicklas quirks his eyebrow up at Ovechkin. He glances at the ceiling, the lighting fixtures where someone could easily hide a camera. Ovechkin wouldn’t be reading illegal books if someone was watching. Ovechkin lives to be in the Navy’s good graces.

Ovechkin lets out a shaky breath. His eyes are wide in the dim light. “Da,” he says, voice choked.

The imports must not do this much here; Ovechkin is almost trembling. Nicklas takes his hand away. “Nyet?”

Ovechkin inhales, sharp. He inches closer to Nicklas. The blankets slip from his lap. “Da,” he says, and touches Nicklas’s thigh.

Nicklas had intended to jerk Ovechkin off and get him to return the favor, but his eyes catch on his dick, foreskin retracted to reveal the glistening red head. Nicklas licks his lips, desire swamping his body. He gets his hand around him and jerks him once, twice. He’s so hot, thick. Ovechkin gasps and drops his flashlight, his book. Nicklas can’t wait any longer. He leans down and licks a fat wet stripe up Ovechkin’s dick.

Ovechkin makes a high, surprised sound. His hips jerk up, his cock bumping against Nicklas’s cheek. Nicklas smirks up at him and takes the head of his cock into his mouth. Fuck, it’s good. Nicklas closes his eyes and sucks, the salty taste shutting everything else out. Ovechkin tries to muffle his moans and pulls the sheets from his bed, his huge thighs shaking under Nicklas’s palms.

Nicklas tries to fit as much of him as he can into his mouth. He feels mindless with it, hungry for more of Ovechkin’s taste, his smell, his choked gasps. He loves hearing the Navy’s special boy like this, this prized possession struck dumb by pleasure.

Ovechkin comes with a ragged cry and Nicklas swallows, swallows, swallows. Jesus, when was the last time Ovechkin jerked off? He sits up, wiping his mouth. Ovechkin looks up at him helplessly, spread out over his bed, his spent dick shiny from Nicklas’s spit.

Nicklas straddles Ovechkin’s lap and leans forward to kiss him, his tongue sour with Ovechkin’s come. Ovechkin lets him in right away. His mouth opens hot and wet and easy. Nicklas wants to come, fuck, he needs to _come_.

“Come on,” he mumbles into Ovechkin’s mouth, grinding his dick against Ovechkin’s thigh. He’s still wearing all his clothes but it doesn’t matter, he’s too close to care. “Come on you… you collaborator, come on, touch me.” Ovechkin cups the back of Nicklas’s head and holds him close. His free hand slides underneath Nicklas’s sweater and clutches at his back, wanders down over his ass, pulls his thigh up so Nicklas is spread across Ovechkin’s body.

Nicklas barely recognizes the whimper that escapes him as he comes, messy into his regulation shorts. A year ago he’d have been humiliated by it. He’d never see Ovechkin again, he’d avoid his eye at factory meetings and duck out of illegal parties when he saw him across the room. Nicklas sits up, tugging at his wet shorts.

Ovechkin touches Nicklas’s elbow, his cheek, his hair. “— — — —?”

“I’m not sure why you’re trying, I still don’t speak that,” Nicklas tells him in Swedish. Fuck, he’s soaked through. He’ll have to brave the walk back to his room and hope no one sees him. Those big black crows, the Morality Officers, they don’t usually come out at night.

Ovechkin clambers out of bed, his dick half-hard between his legs. Nicklas stares at the swell of his ass as he rummages through the chest of drawers.

“— — — — — — —,” Ovechkin whispers, when he comes back.

His eyes catch on Ovechkin’s dick, his wide waist, the faded lines of his barcode tattoo below one broad shoulder, before he realizes that Ovechkin is offering him spare shorts.

“Thanks,” he murmurs, forcing his eyes down.

“Thanks,” Ovechkin parrots, grinning that gap-toothed grin. “Swedish? Da?”

Nicklas gets back to his room unscathed, his wet shorts balled up in one hand. He falls into an uneasy sleep, lightly touching the worn eight on Ovechkin’s spare shorts.

* * *

Alex can’t stop watching Nicklas.

He’s got to stop, he keeps telling himself he’ll stop, but then Nicklas will do something unbearable like tuck his messy hair behind one ear and Alex won’t be able to look away.

It’s been two weeks. Nicklas has come to him four times.

“Aren’t you guys gonna teach him English?” Mike Green takes his place on the stationary bike next to Alex.

Alex glances at him. Mike’s not looking accusatory. He’s got those guileless brown eyes, like the street dogs whining for scraps. “We can try. He’s not Russian.”

“He’s not?” Mike frowns and cranes his neck past Alex to watch Nicklas lift weights with jerky, hesitant movements.

Alex shakes his head. They’re not supposed to talk about where they come from, not supposed to speak their languages, not supposed to point out all the guys in the weight room and say _he’s not Russian, he’s Slovak, he’s Czech, he’s Swedish_. Sometimes it’s easier. What does Mike Green know about Russia, about Slovakia, about Sweden? He knows whatever barren Union outpost he hails from and the rink.

They hit the ice in the early afternoon. Alex takes off fast, shuts his eyes and feels the air on his face. He lets his body settle into the familiar rhythm of drills, trying not to watch Nicklas more than he should.

Mike Green is talking to Nicklas by the net. Alex skates over, going for casual, snaking a puck at his feet like he’s thinking about shooting.

“They’re just talking,” Juice says, banging his stick on the ice for a pass. “Don’t worry.”

Alex makes a face and passes, angling closer to the goal so he can hear. Juice sends it back; the puck lands on his tape with a satisfying _thunk_. “I’m not worried.”

“Net,” Greenie is saying, holding the goal netting in his clumsy glove hand. Kolzig watches him, eyebrows raised.

Nicklas frowns.

“Net,” Greenie says again, shaking the goal netting.

“Net,” Nicklas says, hesitant.

Greenie beams. “Yeah! Now how about post.” He pats the post. “Post.”

“Hey, Ovi, incoming!”

The warning comes too late; Alex is distracted and Sema steals the puck easily, the asshole. Alex shouts and gives chase, threatening to check Sema hard enough the glass will break.

“You’ll have to pay for repairs,” Alex shouts, reaching his stick out to hook him. “Your pocket money will be gone for two years!”

Sema collapses in a cackling heap in front of the goal, still trying to send the puck forward into the net. Juice takes the pass and smacks it, laughing hard enough he almost whiffs. Kolzig scoops the puck off the ice with a disdainful expression partially visible behind his mask.

When Alex looks up, Nicklas is watching them.

“Assholes,” Greenie says, pointing at them. He smiles at Alex, a little tentative.

Alex repeats the word in Russian, then Swedish. Slovak, to get Juice to laugh. He’d say it in German but Kolzig is already skating away towards the bench, probably to complain about something.

“Assholes,” Nicklas says, his mouth twitching into the beginnings of a smile. Alex wants to do something crazy. Block five shots in a row, fight Chara, touch Nicklas’s soft pink cheek. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

Coach Boudreau calls out a mild admonishment that no one listens to; he’s in a good mood. Alex has had coaches that insisted players speak English even on the ice, but Coach Boudreau seems content to let them do what they want so long as they’re winning.

Nicklas darts a look towards Coach. His face blanks out. He puts his head down and skates away.

Alex stays late to shoot one-timers, then hits the showers after everyone’s gone. He scrubs up, thinking absently about how many games Coach will let him play in the preseason and if Kolzig’s numbers will rebound. George might think about looking at another goalie if they don’t. He might even talk about it with Alex, if Alex approaches him the right way. The day after a win, maybe.

“You should tell Bäckström about the Anglos.”

Alex nearly trips on slick tile. Feds is like a goddamn cat. “Fucking fuck, Seryozha. You couldn’t wait to talk to me until after my shower?”

Feds doesn’t answer. He doesn’t need to; Alex knows Feds always likes to have these little chats with the water running. He’s old and paranoid.

“Mike Green seems too friendly.”

Alex sighs and reaches for the shampoo. “Greenie’s harmless. Simple.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. At least one of the Union guys is reporting straight to McPhee. Maybe more.”

Alex rolls his eyes. “Reporting what? Let them tattle, if they’re so desperate. What the hell are they even going to find? I don’t care. They can watch me.”

Feds raises an eyebrow. “They’re not only watching you, Alex.”

Alex puts his face into the water. He doesn’t know what Feds and Vitya are really up to, but he suspects it’s a lot of stupid scheming that will result in nothing. Alex isn’t about to nose his way in; they’ve got it good in the Navy. Where would any of them even go, the Black & Gold? Alex would rather drink shampoo.

“Yeah, okay. I’m sure George will be absolutely fascinated by the time Sema and I stole an exercise ball to bowl water bottles with last week. Bäckström learned how to say _net_ in English today, so alert the media. I don’t know why you’re pushing all this so hard, Feds.”

“Do what you want, Alex. It was just a thought.” Feds makes a show of examining his fingernails. “I assume you’re already green-lighted for travel?”

Alex groans. “No, Seryozha, come on. Not another one. It’s stupid, you know it’s stupid.”

“Would you rather I ask Sema?”

“Sema has the sense of direction of a drunk crow. He’ll miss curfew because he can’t find his way back home,” Alex grouses, but he already knows he’s going to deliver Feds’ stupid messages or whatever smuggled out of Verizon in the lining of his coat. “You owe me, old man.”

Alex gets a day pass and lists his intended activities as _shopping_ and _walking around (spiritual contemplation),_ English letters he only knows by shape. He buys a Coca Cola and feeds the street dogs and meanders sufficiently to hope anyone who may be following has given up. Alex winds his way northwest, aiming his route so he gets to pass the big white ruin of a mansion on Pennsylvania and try to peer through the windows. Alex has a reputation for wandering he probably would have acquired with or without Feds’ stupid message in his pocket, and it comes in handy as he drops the envelope inside someone’s trash bin along with some chewing gum he bought for that express purpose.

Alex’s stipend is larger than most imports’, but it’s not _enormous_. Feds owes him a dollar fifty.

He stops to sign a few napkins and hats on his way back to Verizon. Even the kids look a little downcast, which he supposes is fair considering the Navy’s record the last couple years.

“Where have _you_ been?” Sema is lying along the length of the couch in import quarters, legs kicked up over the armrest, in the midst of a card game with Juice and Flash.

Nicklas sits in the corner, curled very tight in an armchair. He has a Morality Booklet and a pen, although what he could be doing with it Alex has no idea. He peers over the top, two suspicious green eyes fringed with pale lashes.

“Enjoying the afternoon. No coat! Just a sweatshirt, track jacket.” Alex sprawls out over the armchair opposite Nicklas, stretching his legs. He can feel Nicklas watching him. Alex spreads his legs wider, feeling impossibly daring. “Washington in July. Great weather.”

Sema twists his mouth. “Alone? Sounds boring.”

“At last I was free from the smell of Juice’s protein gas.” Alex makes a show of relaxation, sinking into the chair. “Heaven.”

Juice snorts and pitches a pillow at his head.

“Well, Kolzig tried to stab me with a fork because I put peanut butter in the toes of his slippers,” Sema says, a little sulkily. “You missed it.”

Alex looks at Nicklas. It feels like the exhilarating, suspended moment right before the whistle. Alex looks at Nicklas, and Nicklas looks back, and Alex feels like he might shake right out of his skin. He tears his eyes away. “Just a fork? I would have thought he’d smash a few sticks over your head. Maybe a chair.”

The room swirls with suggestions for what, exactly, Kolzig could have justifiably hit Sema with for his offense, and Alex feels himself trying to be twice as loud and twice as funny, showing off even though Nicklas doesn’t understand a word he’s saying. It’s stupid. He can’t help himself.

Alex fidgets his way until lights-out, and then lies awake shivering in anticipation.

His door creaks.

Jesus, he’s starting to get hard just from the sound, the wheeze of wood and metal hinges that precedes Nicklas slipping into his room at night.

Nicklas ducks inside and closes the door behind him. For a moment he stands very still and looks at Alex. The world recedes to the pale green slivers of Nicklas’s irises, his enormous black pupils, his translucent blond eyelashes.

Alex’s heart pounds heavy enough to rattle his ribs. 

Nicklas blinks, and it’s enough to pull Alex out of bed. He crowds Nicklas up against the door, his clothes brushing against Alex’s bare skin. Nicklas tilts his head back and looks at him. Alex palms his soft cheek, the gentle curve of his chin. Nicklas leans against the door and lets Alex touch him.

Alex sweeps his thumb along his lower lip and Nicklas’s mouth falls open, soft and wet and pink. Alex kisses him slowly, carefully, but Nicklas doesn’t seem to want slow. He grabs Alex’s hair and keeps him close, bites his mouth. Alex moans helplessly into Nicklas’s mouth. He gets his fingers underneath Nicklas’s sweater and pulls up, up.

Nicklas pulls back, frowning.

The other nights they did this Alex could barely think, let alone get Nicklas out of his clothes. Nicklas crawled into Alex’s bed and a haze of lust engulfed him, made him clumsy and stupid. Alex wants this time to be different. He wants this time to last.

Alex pulls the sweater over Nicklas’s head. His hair tumbles out, a tangle of messy curls. He looks up at Alex, a little petulant.

“Please,” Alex says, bringing their chests together. The brush of skin feels deliriously good, a glut of touch.

Nicklas mutters something, disgruntled, and drops to his knees.

Alex gapes down at him for twenty undignified seconds. Nicklas rubs Alex’s cock against his lips, watching him smugly.

“No, no,” Alex says, reaching down to pull Nicklas up by the elbows. “I mean, yes, but wait. Wait.”

Nicklas frowns.

“Here.” Alex backs Nicklas up until his legs hit the bed. He sits down, frowning. Alex gets on his knees and pulls Nicklas’s sweatpants down, prods him until he lifts his hips so he can slide them off.

Nicklas sits naked and hard, legs askew, on Alex’s bed. He glowers at him with barely restrained impatience. Alex has to grip his dick to relieve the pressure.

Alex has seen bodies. Of course he’s seen bodies, he’s been in locker rooms and dormitories his whole life. He’s seen the dick of every friend he’s ever had. He’s smacked the bare asses of forty or more teammates across North America. Nearly every shower of Alex’s life has been a shared experience between him and a raucous group of naked idiots, forever pelting each other with soap and stealing each others’ clothes.

Alex has seen Nicklas’s body. Stripped down and sweaty after practice, red and mottled with bruises. Obscured in shower steam, his soft dick and his big thighs glistening wet. He’s seen Nicklas at night, half-dressed with his shorts pulled down and his shirt rucked up. Nothing prepared him for Nicklas like this, acres of pale soft skin, his skinny ankles and solid, thick chest, looking at him with a challenging tilt of his sparse eyebrows.

Alex runs his hands up Nicklas’s inner thighs, the tender hairless skin there, then retraces his path with his mouth.

“I want to bite here,” he says, kissing the soft parts of Nicklas’s thigh. He grazes his teeth over the skin. “I don’t know if you like it.”

Nicklas twitches, his hips pushing up. He’s breathing fast and shallow, his fingers clutching the sheets.

Alex nips Nicklas’s thigh and leans forward to lick Nicklas’s pink dick.

Nicklas lets out a breath.

Alex rubs his lips over the head, mimicking what Nicklas had done. Nicklas seems to like that. His hips tremble and he bites his lower lip and he stares at Alex with hungry, defiant eyes.

Sex feels a little like hockey: the same burning need in his body, the same tight coil of anticipation. When Alex plays well his mind falls away and his body moves, finding the puck, finding the back of the net. He feels like that, touching Nicklas, watching his skin flush and sweat. He brings Nicklas’s cock to his mouth again, sucks at the head, then pulls off to look at Nicklas’s face.

Nicklas grumbles something in his language.

Alex grins, his hand loose around the base of Nicklas’s cock. “Maybe you have to make me.” Nicklas doesn’t understand him, but the moment the words come out of Alex’s mouth he’s shivery with anticipation. He wants that. He wants Nicklas to make him. Alex moves Nicklas’s hand to the back of his head and looks up at him, willing him to understand.

Nicklas slowly grips Alex’s hair.

Alex shuts his eyes and opens his mouth, keeps his tongue soft.

Nicklas tugs his hair and drives his cock into Alex’s mouth, gentle and relentless.

Oh shit, oh fuck. Alex grabs his dick with his free hand. It’s so good, the ache of his jaw and Nicklas’s gasps, the way his fingers tighten when he whimpers. Drool drips down Alex’s chin. Nicklas’s legs shake. He pulls at Alex’s hair and whispers in Swedish and gasps high and surprised when he comes.

Alex tries to swallow, like Nicklas does, but he only manages a mouthful before he has to pull off and sputter. His face feels so wet. It’s deliciously satisfying to be on his knees between Nicklas’s legs, skin soaked in spit and come. He grips his dick. It’s not going to take him long.

Nicklas tilts his chin up with cool fingers, touches his wet skin and his swollen mouth.

Alex gapes up at him, his hand clumsy on his cock. Nicklas looks at him, and Alex looks at Nicklas, and he only looks away when he can’t keep his eyes open anymore. He tips forward as he spills wet over his fingers, his forehead resting on Nicklas’s knee, helpless until the sensation ebbs away.

Nicklas retrieves his clothes and slips out the door when Alex is still blinking and dazed. Alex wipes his face with a t-shirt and falls asleep like he’s sinking into a deep bath.

* * *

Nicklas is only beginning to parse out their odd, piecemeal language but he’s started to understand the rhythms of the import quarters.

Fedorov’s in charge. When there’s a spat, a couple guys bickering over peanut butter or the TV, he’s the one they bring in to settle it, and when he’s not around they turn to Viktor Kozlov, his second-in-command.

Ovechkin and Semin follow Fedorov around like enormous ducklings when they’re not wreaking havoc of one sort or another. If there’s a crash, or a shout, something breaking, odds are it’s the two of them, forever making up games that demolish furniture and leave welts in the walls.

Ovechkin always invites him to join, miming with vigorous enthusiasm. Nicklas doesn’t. He can sneak into Ovechkin’s room at night when he’s annoyed and horny, fine, but he’s not going to get pally with him.

Nylander returns from injury and slinks around import quarters with his head down, turning up for mealtimes and then disappearing into his room. Nicklas catches him for thirty seconds at a time. Nylander only wants to translate a few words, and then escape.

As the season begins, every shift Nicklas takes seems to last a maximum of five seconds. Nicklas fumbles with his stick and loses the puck and gets shoved off his feet. He’s shit.

That would be fine if he was fucking up purposefully to get sent down to Hershey, but he isn’t. Nicklas still can’t throw the damn game. He hits the ice and he wants to _win_. And then he takes a mammoth hit into the boards, and he’s riding the bench for the rest of the period.

He’s not playing well. It shouldn’t _matter_ , obviously, none of this shit matters, but still itches at him like nettles caught in his clothes. 

Boudreau takes him off the first line and replaces him with Fedorov. Still, there’s no hint he’ll get sent down.

Ovechkin catapults into every game with a kind of feral, wild joy that sends him straight to the net. He gets at least a goal a game, nearly. Nicklas can’t stop watching him, can’t stop glancing at him laughing in the locker room after games, his towel more of a suggestion than a reality. His big, heavy body. Some of the imports have skin riddled with smudged black marks, symbols and shapes on inner thighs and ankles, but Ovechkin’s skin is unblemished but for his barcode tattoo. 

Nicklas lies awake at night and tries to convince himself not to creep down the hallway, not to go into Ovechkin’s room.

Ovechkin sleeps naked, all his limbs flung out over his narrow bed. Just imagining his bare skin is enough to get Nicklas hot, to make him squirm against the sheets and think of Ovechkin’s mouth, his heavy dick, the spread of hair over his wide chest.

Nicklas tries to remember that Ovechkin is a collaborator, complicit, a ready soldier for all those men with clipboards who own them now, who tattooed their marks onto their bodies. Nicklas shouldn’t go to him for anything. Nicklas can’t get involved with these people. Nicklas has to keep his eyes focused on his goal.

It works half the time.

The rest of the time Nicklas will tiptoe down the half-lit hallway and ease Ovechkin’s door open slowly, so it doesn’t creak. Sometimes he’s still awake, reading one of his tattered books by flashlight. Other times Nicklas crawls into his bed and feels him wake up, feels his body respond to Nicklas like a flower opening under a hot greenhouse light. He likes that, probably too much.

Ovechkin makes the same appreciative, throaty sound every time Nicklas touches him. They clearly don’t do this much in the Navy; Ovechkin is clumsy, unpracticed but enthusiastic, and he nearly chokes on Nicklas’s dick the first couple times he tries to suck him. Nicklas likes that too.

If Nicklas finally gets sent down, he’ll miss that, probably.

Nicklas thinks about Hershey. The chainlink fence, the handful of bored coaches with clipboards, the acres of woodland around the arena. He should embrace his shitty play. Ride his failure all the way out of the Navy, and then he can get out. Escape.

* * *

The season falls into its usual relentless rhythm. Alex plays very well, then he starts to play just okay, and Sema overtakes him for points leader on the Navy, which rankles. Sema racks up goals and penalty minutes at roughly equal pace, but the Navy’s still losing more than winning by a hefty margin. Alex hasn’t scored in eight games, a career high as the press keeps helpfully reminding him. Kolzig’s numbers are starting to deteriorate, and Nicklas isn’t putting up any points, isn’t playing very well at all.

“You should talk to him,” Coach Boudreau tells him after a somber practice. “You guys are friends, right?”

Alex thinks about Nicklas guiding his head over his dick last night, the way his fingers clenched in Alex’s hair, the choked gasp he made when he came. “Yes,” he says.

“His confidence may have taken a hit, eh? It’s a tough league. He’ll turn out, you know, most of you guys have so far.” Coach pats Alex’s arm. “He shouldn’t be worried about getting sent down, if that’s on his mind. We’re gonna keep working with him.”

“I’ll tell him,” Alex promises, and gives Coach a reassuring smile.

“I told Feds if you guys have any problems in your area to come right to me.” Coach puts his bucket of pucks on the rink wall. “But so far so good, he says. Everything’s going all right over there? We don’t want anything… distracting you guys.” Coach’s skin shines sweaty under the florescent lights. His eyes dart from Alex to the pucks to the rink. 

“Sema and I broke the couch doing obstacle races,” Alex admits sheepishly, and Coach laughs so hard he has to hold himself up. Alex grins too, pleased and more than a little relieved.

“Well, don’t get injured, buddy. We’ve got a lot invested in you.”

“We only ever play with full gear, Coach. Buckets required.”

“I’m glad we can count on you, Ovi.” Coach pats Alex’s arm. “You’re a real team guy. A real team player. You’ll think about what I said, eh? If there’s anybody causing distractions, you let us know.”

Alex gives him a thumbs-up. “Sure, Coach.”

Nicklas doesn’t visit Alex every night. It’s for the best, on the odd chance a Morality Officer might stumble into import quarters, but Alex wishes he would anyway. He wants to touch him all the time. He wants to run his fingers through his tangled hair, to kiss his hot cheek, to hear the shallow way he breathes when he’s turned on.

Alex should be thinking about hockey. He’s not thinking about hockey.

The Navy lose 5-0 to the Navy & Gold in November and Alex knows immediately things are not going to go well. They’re struggling in the standings, can’t seem to buy a win. Verizon hasn’t exactly been what anyone would call _popular_ , even for Washington.

Coach screams at them the next day, running the kind of practice that has guys dry heaving on the ice. Alex can see George and Ted watching from above.

“You have to move,” Alex pants, nudging Sema. “They’re watching, come on.”

Sema struggles to his feet and keeps skating, going steadily greener with every stride.

Nicklas watches them, sweaty and pale. His hands are on his knees and he’s breathing so heavily he sounds like he’s crying.

“Come on.” Alex manages a smile. “Just like juniors, come on.”

They struggle through practice somehow. A couple guys stop halfway through to vomit into one of the buckets helpfully placed at center ice, Nicklas included.

“Team dinner tonight, boys,” Coach tells them grimly. “No exceptions.”

“He tries the carrot, and now he tries the stick,” Sema grouses on their way to the cafeteria. “I liked it better when he was pretending to be our generous uncle. _You can do it, boys!_ ”

“That’s your impression? Really? You sound like you inhaled helium.” Alex pitches his voice high. “ _You can do it boys!_ Weak, Sema. Feeble.”

Sema rolls his eyes. “He treats us like naughty children. I’m sick of it.”

A Morality Officer stands just inside the cafeteria, that unmistakable flat hat and the long black robes.

Alex forces a laugh. “Pathetic,” he says in English. “Like your giveaway against the Blue & Gold the other day, what was that? A present?”

The guys laugh, Sema pouts, and the Morality Officer watches them pass without a word. Alex lets out a breath.

The same Morality Officer is waiting for them in the residential wing common room after their meagre dinner, and the imports promptly lose their English. They hang to the back and let the North Americans weather the brunt of his concern, his handouts, his pats on their shoulders. He keeps telling them that when their moral strength fails, their defense fails.

 _Every sin is a goal against_ , Alex thinks, and has to grind his teeth together before he starts laughing. Under that rubric the Navy boasts an unusually high-scoring moral fibre with a truly awful goal differential. Feels about right.

He glances at Nicklas, the delicate ridge of nose, his glazed expression. If he’s a sin, Alex’s moral defense is three pylons and an empty net.

The Morality Officer drones on, something about counter-Revolutionary penalty kills, maybe.

Alex scans the Union players. If Feds was right, one of them might be in close with this guy, or maybe just coaching staff, or McPhee. Seems a little stupid to Alex. Maybe the guy thinks tattling will guarantee him a spot in the lineup.

It could be Brooks Laich: he nods vociferously after everything the Morality Officer says. Chris Clark is standing in the front, so he can’t slack or look away, but it’s probably out of a sense of obligation. Clark takes his captaincy seriously. Mike Green’s eyes have started to droop conspicuously; there’s a solid chance he’s going to start snoring.

Alex’s legs ache. He subtly shifts, trying to get his muscles to warm up.

Nicklas is visibly wobbling on his feet when the Morality Officer finally lets them escape. Alex wants to help him inside, but he moves too fast.

“Can’t you get us extra food, Ovi?” Juice limps to the kitchen cupboards and starts pulling cans out of the recesses of the shelves. “Sweet-talk Leonsis a little, you know.”

“I can try,” Alex says. “Don’t think it’ll work.” He’ll ask if the guys want him to, but he can already see Ted’s disappointed expression. He’ll be kind about it, but he’ll say no. _We’ve already given you dinner. We want you guys a little hungry, Alex_ , he’ll say ruefully. _I wish there was something I could do_.

Juice cobbles together a supplementary meal that everyone eats in miserable silence. Stale bread and whatever was in the cupboards. It tastes disgusting but Alex used to have to eat cotton balls when he was hungry; this is nothing. Nicklas can’t seem to stomach it. He moves the beans and tinned fish around his plate until it’s a miserable mess of food.

“For fuck’s sake. Let me eat it if you’re not going to,” Sema snaps.

Nicklas looks up.

“You heard me. You’re just pushing it around; don’t waste it.”

“He might not understand you,” Juice points out.

“Translate if you want,” Sema leans back to eye Nylander, sitting alone in the corner. “I’m hungry.” Sema thunks his fork into hunks of fish on Nicklas’s plate and starts transporting them to his own.

Nylander looks away.

Alex wrinkles his nose. That guy _bugs_ him. He turns to Nicklas. “Sema’s an asshole,” he says as slowly and clearly as possible, kicking Sema savagely under the table.

Sema yelps. “What? He’s not eating it!” He speaks through a maw crammed with half-chewed food, as usual. “This could be my last meal, Sasha. Take pity. Boudreau doesn’t like my _lack of effort_.” He pitches his voice low and stupid this time to do Coach; his face squished together.

“We’ll win the next one,” Alex says firmly. He passes Nicklas his extra bread. Nicklas stares at it like it’s a foreign substance for a few seconds, but he eats it. “He’s right, anyway. We played like garbage yesterday.”

Sema leans back, arms crossed over his chest. “And this is what we get when we play like garbage? Bag skates all day and barely any dinner? This is coaching? This is supposed to _help_?”

The table falls silent. Feds doesn’t glance at the cameras, but Alex can see him noticing them. Like a bat, sensing the walls. They rarely speak English in import quarters, but it’s no guarantee.

“No, this is coaching,” Alex crows, loud and obnoxious. He tips Sema’s chair with his foot.

Sema yowls like an alley cat as he falls and still manages to protect his bowl from spilling. The guys erupt in laughter, echoing Sema’s high scream of surprise. Alex throws himself back in his chair to ape him, fumbling theatrically with his bowl and spoon.

Sema reaches across the table and swipes a bean, then wedges it over his front tooth. “Russian machine never breaks,” he says, grinning, and proceeds to enthusiastically check the furniture.

Alex howls. “Boarding! Ref, boarding!”

“Illegal hit,” Juice hollers, “That sofa had his back turned!”

Alex peeks at Nicklas to see if he’s one of the guys laughing, smiling. He’s not.

The meal winds down. Most of the guys head to bed early. Nicklas lingers, watching Alex stack dishes in the sink.

Nicklas’s brow furrows; he looks like he’s concentrating hard. “Thanks… bread.”

Alex grins. “Your accent is good. Just like a native Russian.”

“Nyet,” Nicklas says. His mouth twitches.

Every once in a while Alex will say something, or do something, or make a spectacular fool of himself in some way or another, and a smile will leak from the corners of Nicklas’s mouth. Alex soaks it in when he can, because it always means Nicklas is about to make a hasty exit.

Sure enough, Nicklas bobs his head awkwardly and escapes down the hall. The door to his room bangs shut.

Alex smiles foolishly into space. He’s tired, his team stinks and he’s hungry, but ludicrous happiness bubbles up his body until there isn’t room for anything else. He hasn’t felt like this since his first season in the NHL, a kind of feverish excitement, a feeling like something big was happening and he didn’t want to sleep and miss it.

Alex bounces on the balls of his feet. Maybe he can annoy Sema out of his sulk. Alex can probably needle him into playing cards. And then, maybe, after lights-out, Nicklas will come to Alex’s bed.

Feds pulls Alex aside before he can go, because he’s a paranoid fuck and he lives to make ominous proclamations. He runs the tap and rinses the dishes Alex haphazardly stacked. “You need to watch out.”

Alex waves a hand airily, in too good a mood to play along. “Sema’s gonna be fine. I’ll talk to him.”

“I’m not talking about Sanya. Although he, too, could have less of a death wish. You need to be _careful_.” His expression is pointed. “With Bäckström.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Feds raises his eyebrows. “Did you think you were the first, Alex? I’ve been in the league a long time. I’ve seen this happen before.”

Alex swallows hard. “What happen? There’s nothing going on.”

Feds sighs. “I don’t know what it is, if it’s just a flirtation. Maybe that’s all it is now. I hope for both your sakes it stays that way. It puts you at risk.” 

Alex flushes. “They won’t trade me. I’m the face of the team.”

“Trade you? Oh, Alex. Do you think that’s the worst thing they could do?”

Alex looks at Feds and hardly recognizes him, the bitter twist of his mouth, the map of wrinkles on his furrowed forehead. The blurry marks of old tattoos mapping his arms. Alex feels himself soften. “I’ll be careful, Seryozha. I swear.”

“I hope so.” Feds turns the tap off. “I hope so, Sasha.”

* * *

The locker room heaves with bodies before the Navy plays the Red & Silver at home, a constantly shifting morass of half-naked guys in search of tape, water, salts. Nicklas laces his skates and lets the noise wash over him, surprised to understand as many words as he does. The Russian has filled in faster than English, like a puzzle beginning to reveal its subject, but he can still understand Brooks Laich when he shouts that they need to _give it to them tonight, boys._

Nicklas glances at Ovechkin. The locker room’s uneasy balance of power has no locus. There’s their star, Ovechkin, and the undisputed leader of the imports, Fedorov. There’s the North American captain, Chris Clark, frequently injured and thus frequently absent, and there’s Brooks Laich, vocal and pious, eager to speak to media and eager to speak in the room. No one has the allegiance of everyone. The room feels strange, disjointed.

A fight breaks out in the first period. Brashear and a big Red & Silver defenseman lighting up their sticks for a spot on the team, money in their pockets. Brashear takes Twenty-Eight down within half a minute. Brashear skates back to the bench and Twenty-Eight lies on the ice, bleeding.

Nicklas forces himself to look away.

They scrape the blood off the ice and Twenty-Eight is back on the bench for the second period.

The Navy is losing 2-1 in the third when Fedorov goes down hard, his ankle twisting horribly. He hobbles down the tunnel and Boudreau thumps Nicklas’s shoulder.

“You’re with Ovi and Semin.” He turns to Nylander. “He understand that?”

Nylander tersely repeats the question in Swedish, his eyes trained on the ice. “You understand?”

Nicklas nods.

Ovechkin is the first one over the boards, eager as a dog let off a leash. Semin and Nicklas follow.

 _Play poorly_ , Nicklas reminds himself. _Play poorly, ride your failure back to Hershey_.

The puck drops. Nicklas forgets everything except the sound of skate blades, the rhythmic thump of bodies colliding, the crisp thud of a good pass. They pin the Red & Silver in the offensive zone and keep them there, cycling the puck in an effortless game of keep-away that results in Semin circling the net to throw the puck into the goal.

Ovechkin throws his arms in the air and hollers, as thrilled as if he had scored himself. They crash together in celebration, sweat and noise, Ovechkin’s arm thrown around Nicklas’s neck, Nicklas’s face pressed into Semin’s shoulder. Nicklas is so happy. He can’t help himself. He wants to win.

Face-off in their defensive zone. Nicklas sets up on the dot. Semin and Ovechkin wait on the goal-side hash marks, Mike Green solid between them.

The Red & Silver’s left defenseman gets a look on his face like he’s about to light up his stick. He leans forward. “Gävle, right?”

Nicklas jerks his eyes away from the linesman’s hand. Number Seven is big, scruffy, dark stubble covering his broad jaw. He had been clean-shaven on the ice for Brynäs. Nicklas remembers the trading card: set up in front of the goal, snow shavings obscuring the goalie, his eyebrows dark parentheses above wide eyes. Nicklas and Kris swapping hockey cards on the living room carpet after games. Oh, _god_. Home.

Number Seven scoots forward. His Swedish is rough, almost accented. “Did you cry when they shot your parents, Gävle? You look like a weeper.”

Nicklas freezes. His nose stings, his eyes.

“Back up, seven,” the linesman warns.

Number Seven backs up, chewing his mouthguard, eyes trained on Nicklas. “What happened to you after, Gävle? How old were you then, twelve? They sent all of us here, you know. Sold the whole team to the Union because of what you people did.”

Nicklas loses the face-off. He can’t find the fucking puck; his eyes burn. Play swirls around him like so much vapor, impossible to touch.

The whistle blows. No one calls for a face-off. Nicklas glances at the bench, the linesmen. Red lights over the timekeeper’s bench. Timeout.

“Fuck you, Gävle,” Number Seven hisses, as he skates towards his bench.

Spit hits Nicklas’s cheek. He wipes it off.

Ovechkin circles him, concerned. “You okay?”

Russian sounds strange after Swedish. Ovechkin shapes his words slowly, carefully. He always does when he speaks to Nicklas. Ovechkin will try a sentence in their patchwork Import language, in Russian, in English, repeating himself slowly until Nicklas understands. When he chatters to Semin Nicklas can barely pick out the sounds.

Semin joins them, wiping his face with a towel. “Strategizing without me? Rude.” 

Ovechkin shakes his head. “I don’t know, that Swedish guy said some shit to Backy.”

“I am okay,” Nicklas lies in his slow Russian. Number Seven has turned his attention to his coach, his back to Nicklas. Nicklas looks away. His eyes are stinging again.

Semin considers Nicklas. “Oh, fine. I want to win this fucking thing already.” He grabs Nicklas’s arm and pulls him close, brings their faces together. “Out there, we belong to them. Boudreau tells us where to skate, where to shoot, where to set up. It’s their game. But when the game starts, who owns it? Who’s to say what the game is?”

Nicklas feels strangely removed with Semin’s pale eyes fixed on him. The crowd a vapor, the other players so much moving mist.

“Sanya,” Ovechkin warns, skating between them and the bench.

Semin doesn’t look away from Nicklas, all the mirth drained from his handsome face. “They keep us in boxes and take us out when it pleases them and we say the words they shove into our mouths. But the game? Coach tells us to skate here, forecheck, careful with your stick, Sema, don’t take unnecessary penalties. Okay. Nice words. What is he going to do sitting pretty on the bench? I have the puck. It’s my game now. Do you understand?”

Nicklas thinks about Ovechkin racing through the neutral zone, the puck on his tape. No one can touch him. Not their opponents, not their coach, not the North American Union itself. That look in his eye, like he could tear through the fabric of space itself to score. He can hear Ovechkin’s ragged breathing. He’s nervous. He’s never nervous like that in the game.

Semin twists his stick a little, so the knife just shows. “On the ice we speak for ourselves. You hate them, we can show them that. Get me the puck. We’ll win.”

 _We’ll win_ like a curse. _We’ll win_ like a knife to the gut. Nicklas nods slowly, and Semin lets go. Ovechkin nods a little too, as if they’d been talking out a play.

The linesman drops the puck at centre ice. Play resumes like a greyhound unleashed onto a track.

Nicklas wins the face-off but the Red & Silver swipe the puck, dump it and give chase. Nicklas drags it out of a corner, ducks Number Seven and circles it behind the net to Ovechkin.

Time ticks down: twenty seconds, eighteen, fifteen.

Ovechkin rockets through the neutral zone, puck glued to his tape. Semin keeps pace on the right side, a perfect reflection as they pass over the red line, the blue line, until the Red & Silver swarm Ovechkin and he snakes a pass through the slot. Semin snipes the puck high left corner, a soaring beauty of a goal.

The crowd erupts, the goal siren blares and exhilaration sizzles through Nicklas’s blood. They pile up against the boards, a heaving morass of breath. Ovechkin hits them last, launching himself almost on top of the group and falling into Nicklas’s arms. He beams at Nicklas, and Nicklas beams back, helpless. Ovechkin’s effervescent joy could power the entire ice center.

“The game is ours for ten more seconds,” Semin murmurs as they skate towards the bench. “Ten, nine, eight.”

Boudreau beams, pink and pleased. “Great effort, boys! Way to use the body to get that puck, Backy. Good hustle.”

“Zero,” Semin mutters. “Though maybe he’ll get off our jocks now.”

Ovechkin rolls his eyes and swings his arm over Nicklas’s shoulders. “You got this win for us, Backy. You got the puck free, it’s your play.” He shakes Nicklas a little but he barely moves, caught in the orbit of Ovechkin’s body. “Huge win. Fuck that Swedish guy. You’re our guy.”

Nicklas can’t stop himself from smiling, but he also can’t stop himself from watching Number Seven skate off the ice.

* * *

Alex wakes up to Nicklas crawling into bed, tucking his freezing feet by Alex’s calves.

“Ice feet,” Alex mumbles. He turns onto his side to pull Nicklas close, sliding his hands underneath his clothes.

Desire coils up in him like a lazy snake. He’s groggy, tired, but Nicklas’s skin is so soft. Endless under his t-shirt, beneath his sweatpants. Alex wants to touch all of him at once but he can’t. He sweeps his palm up over Nicklas’s soft muscled back and down, beneath his sweatpants to squeeze his big ass.

Nicklas’s leg slips in between Alex’s, twining them together until Nicklas’s hip brushes up against Alex’s dick. Nicklas inhales, sharp. Alex loves this part, when Nicklas stops pretending like he’s not all that interested and starts to demand things, starts to yank Alex close or bite his neck or clutch his arms.

They move together underneath the blankets. Alex pushes Nicklas’s sweatpants down with his fingers and his toes, coaxes his shirt over his head. They grind together and Nicklas’s breath turns ragged, wet. Alex pulls back to watch his face, the distended arc of his spit-slick mouth.

Nicklas makes a small, half-swallowed sound and it feels like a goal, the jolt of triumph, a feeling like outrunning the knives at his back. Alex knows they aren’t supposed to do this. He doesn’t care.

His hands can score and they can coax muffled moans from Nicklas Bäckström, transform him until he’s sweaty and flushed with his golden hair in damp curls over his forehead. It’s astonishing, miraculous.

Brooks Laich claims spilling seed pollutes the body. He says in self-abuse the energy leaves you and goes nowhere. Alex can’t imagine what Brooks would say about him and Nicklas in bed together, but Alex had three assists tonight and last night he spilled his seed all over Nicklas’s neck and chest and smeared it into his skin until Nicklas threw his head back and followed him over the edge. Brooks Laich is full of shit.

Alex licks the seed from Nicklas’s stomach after he comes.

After, Alex catches his breath, triumphant, mouth still sour with Nicklas’s come. Fuck Brooks Laich. What did he even do tonight? No hits, a couple shots on goal. Alex hit seven guys, pretty good, although he regrets not getting a chance to run that Swedish defenseman. He thinks about the guy’s cruel hissing voice, the way Nicklas went white and startled after.

“Hey, you know that guy? Before?”

Nicklas is silent for a long time. Alex is happy to wait him out, drowsy, savoring the sweet smell of Nicklas’s clean skin and the solid weight of him in his arms.

“He play in Gävle for a little time,” Nicklas says finally. “Where I am of.”

The name dings something in Alex’s memory, foggy and dim. He can’t place it. “He an asshole? You want me to stick him for you?” Alex hasn’t ever got his sticking knife out during a game, not for real, but checking that guy would probably be satisfying. He imagines slamming him into the boards hard enough to knock his teeth out: yes, very satisfying.

Nicklas shrugs. “If you want.”

Alex does want. He’ll make that guy regret his birth.

Nicklas shifts a little. “How many of years do you play? Before?”

Alex thinks of the sweaty lacquered court smell he associates with his mother, his brother’s hand guiding him off the icy tram, watching out the dormitory window as Sergei disappeared into the swirling snow. “I’ve been a hockey player my whole life. I was maybe seven when I went to live with Dynamo. That’s my old hockey club, mine and Sema’s.”

“I see you skate. Like…” Nicklas makes a frustrated sound. “Small. Little?”

Alex has heard it before. “Like a kid?”

“Yes. Like a kid.” Nicklas repeats after Alex slowly, each syllable a painstaking effort. “You have play a lot. Hockey here is not like Sweden. The knife, the face-off. Import guys, how it is. I…” Nicklas covers his face with one hand and says something in Swedish. “I do not play good.”

Alex takes Nicklas’s hand away from his face. He stretches to kiss Nicklas’s round cheek, the corner of his tense mouth. It was a long time ago, but he remembers being a rookie. “You get used to it. The ice is smaller, so it’s not so much about puck possession. Less space, more bodies. Play is more exciting, I think.”

Nicklas chews his lip. “And the knife?”

Alex shrugs. “It’s just how it is. Your pads protect your chest; it’s not a big deal. Last year this guy got me in the thigh and I didn’t even notice until after the game. I took off my gear and there was blood all over my hockey pants.” He laughs, remembering. He hadn’t known it was blood at first, thought maybe someone was pranking him with ketchup until he saw the gash in his skin. “Two goal game, though. Not bad.”

Alex settles down on Nicklas’s chest and moves Nicklas’s hand to his head, trying to get him to pet his hair. “Don’t worry. We’ll play well, and we’ll keep winning, and everything will be fine. I promise you.”

Nicklas strokes Alex’s hair and makes a noncommittal sound. Alex hums with satisfaction and presses his cheek to Nicklas’s soft, warm chest.

Tonight was the start of an upswing, Alex can feel it. They’ll play well. They’ll win, and keep winning, and Ted and George will stop looking so much at Sema. The coaching staff will stop trying out tactics to shock the team into playing better, everyone will eat what they want and get day passes regardless of their penalty minutes. They just have to win, and everything will be fine.

* * *

Oh, fuck. Shit.

Nicklas sits up, covers sliding down his skin. He fell asleep in Ovechkin’s bed. Stupid, _stupid_.

Ovechkin grumbles in his sleep and reaches for Nicklas. Nicklas wiggles out of his clingy arms and gets dressed, shivering in the predawn chill. The sun isn’t up yet, which is a small blessing. He wants to sleep for four more hours, but he can’t do that here.

What was he thinking? Going to Ovechkin for what, comfort? So every Swede Nicklas has encountered in this garbage country has been cruel, dismissive. So what? He’s alone. Nobody’s going to cry for him. Nobody’s going to help him. Nothing has changed. Nicklas needs to have his own back. God keeps those safe who keep themselves safe.

Nicklas slips out of Ovechkin’s room and vows to stay away from him. He’s getting too cozy, taking too many risks. He wants to get out of here, but not into another jail cell.

Nicklas creeps through the corridor, dodging the motion sensitive light by instinct. The kitchen is dark, seating area sofas transformed into hulking dark shapes, the low table half covered in empty mugs, the moon silvery bright through the window.

A pair of pale eyes, staring at him from the kitchen table.

Nicklas freezes.

It’s Semin, sitting in the dark with a dim yellow flashlight for company. The low emergency beam from the hallway reflects in his eyes.

“He never, before,” Semin says. “He never.”

Nicklas can’t move. He feels strangely guilty, like a teenager sneaking in past curfew. “Who never?”

“Sasha.” Semin’s got a book resting on the table, yellowing and ragged, strange Russian letters. He turns the page.

Nicklas glances at the camera in the corner. Either that doesn’t work either, or Semin’s got a particularly vehement death wish. Maybe both.

“Sasha never what?”

Semin flicks his eyes up at him. “You know. With you. What you do at night.”

Nicklas’s heart pounds. He remembers the first time, Ovechkin’s shocked eyes, the way he came for what seemed like forever. 

“I thought you might want to know.” Semin surveys Nicklas with heavy, palpable disdain.

“Okay.” Nicklas endures Semin’s scrutiny for a few more seconds and waits to see if he’s finished. Semin returns to his book, radiating indifference.

Nicklas escapes into his room and curls up under all of his blankets at once, skin prickly and hot. He shuts his eyes. Nothing Semin said makes any difference. So what if Ovechkin hadn’t had sex before? So what? It isn’t Nicklas’s problem. So he’s corrupted the Navy’s favored son. What was that but another reason to keep his distance?

He falls asleep mostly by force of will, and he dreams of Ovechkin.

— — —

Nicklas keeps himself away from Ovechkin’s bed at night. He speaks to him only on the ice, he keeps his head down and fumbles through the metronomic routine of his day. He focuses on practice so intently Boudreau shells him with a barrage of praise about his work ethic, even if he is primarily staying late in order to tire himself out so he can sleep.

The Navy win a game, they lose a game, they win a game. Nicklas plays better. He sets Ovechkin up for a parade of goals, and every time Ovechkin crashes into him on the ice Nicklas nearly shudders at the press of his pads and needs to frantically remind himself to stay away from him, to rely only on himself, to stop his face from melting into an awful simpering smile whenever Ovechkin thumps his helmet to thank him for an assist.

It’s only been a week and Nicklas is antsy, irritable, jerking off twice a night thinking about how surprised Ovechkin looked when Nicklas played with his nipples, like he’d never known that his body could give him pleasure before. Or about how the next night Ovechkin had rubbed his thumbs in tight circles over Nicklas’s nipples until they stood up, and then tried out everything Nicklas had done to him in relentless succession. Nicklas had made choked sounds in his throat and Ovechkin had beamed, smug and pleased with himself, as if he had discovered those tricks himself.

Nicklas lies on his bed covered in his own come and tries to rationalize his way back into Ovechkin’s bed. Yes, fucking Ovechkin could get him sent back to prison or whatever the Union does to their deviants, but that’s unlikely so long as they both play well and they don’t get caught. It’s fine if they don’t get caught.

It’s fine if they don’t get caught, and if it’s just a fuck. Nicklas got sloppy before. If he does it again this time there will be no hair touching or sharing of confidences, just two bodies breaking the law in a mutually satisfying manner. Just a fuck. Just the best fuck of Nicklas’s life, and nothing else.

Ovechkin corners Nicklas outside the cafeteria after breakfast.

“Hi,” he says, and he’s beaming.

Nicklas wants to look away. He can’t look away. “Hi,” he says, and tries to keep his face motionless.

“We have a day off today.”

Nicklas nods slowly. He had gathered that. It’s all anyone can fucking talk about. The last time they’d had a day off, Boudreau had made them skate suicides until Nicklas threw up, and then skate a few more.

Ovechkin fidgets, oddly shy. “Do you have plans?”

Nicklas shakes his head slowly. Mike Green invited him to watch a movie with the Union guys, which he obviously can’t do. The imports and the North Americans don’t mix; Nicklas isn’t about to draw more attention to himself.

“Good.” Ovechkin takes a deep breath, rocking back on his heels. “Do you want to come somewhere with me?”

No. Nicklas should say no. Yes, he’s half-hard looking at the swell of Ovechkin’s muscular thighs in his soft pants, and yes, abstinence is making him cranky, but he should say no.

Nicklas says yes.

He is an idiot of unfathomable proportions. Ovechkin is so excited, thrilled to accompany Nicklas back to import quarters to fetch their jackets, delighted to rush him through the ice center and refuse to let Nicklas know where they’re going.

“Wait,” Ovechkin tells him, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “You stay here.”

Nicklas leans against the cinderblock wall. “Okay.”

“Just one minute,” Ovechkin swears. He’s grinning, his missing tooth flashing. “Right here.”

Nicklas raises an eyebrow. “ _Okay_.”

Ovechkin grips Nicklas’s shoulders firmly, as if to set him in place. Finally he backs off and goes to the front desk, leaning on one elbow and sweet-talking the woman operating it.

Nicklas doesn’t understand most of what they’re saying. Ovechkin and the woman speak too quickly, but Nicklas recognizes Ovechkin’s big laugh, his charming smile. He’s trying to convince her to do something. They go back and forth a few times until she starts smiling, reluctantly, the expression bunching her cheeks, and Nicklas can tell Ovechkin is going to get what he wants. _As usual_ , Nicklas thinks. The golden child.

Ovechkin turns around and beckons Nicklas closer.

The woman scans their PerT tags and says something a little flirtatious to Ovechkin, who laughs and says something back.

“What,” Nicklas demands, as Ovechkin waves farewell and ushers them away from the desk.

“Day pass.” Ovechkin wiggles his PerT tags. “You’re a rookie, should have someone to go with you when you go out, but I talked to her.”

 _Day pass_. Day pass for what?

Nicklas doesn’t have to wonder for long. Ovechkin takes them right to the doors that lead to the street. Nicklas stops short. Two sets of immense automatic doors: thick glass, probably strong enough to withstand a moderately sized explosion. Scanners in between. Guards posted outside. Nicklas’s heart clatters in his ribs like a trapped bird.

“You coming?” Ovechkin stands in front of the first set of doors, beckoning with one big hand. His face is smooth, unworried.

Nicklas follows him outside. 

Biting wind stings Nicklas’s skin. Nobody shoots him. Nobody grabs him and puts him in a van.

“Bye-bye, Joe,” Ovechkin tells one of the guards, smiling wide. “You want anything when we’re out?”

“Hand-warmers, Ovi,” the guard says, with a chuckle, and then some fast English that Nicklas can’t quite catch. Something to do with a hat-trick, maybe.

“You got it.” Ovechkin playfully salutes him, and then leads Nicklas down the sidewalk. Away from Verizon, under the slate grey sky.

A pack of street dogs emerge from the shadows to trail Ovechkin hopefully until he smiles and pulls scraps of food from his pockets. He kneels to feed them and speaks softly in affectionate Russian, pulling on the dogs’ ears.

Nicklas stays very still.

“You don’t like dogs?”

There are so many of them. Big, thick fur, with heavy wedge-shaped heads. Five with Ovechkin, and more up and down the street. Strong jaws, sharp teeth. Nicklas inches away until his back hits a brick wall.

Ovechkin watches him curiously. He pets the dogs a little bit longer and then urges them away, again in Russian. “Not so bad,” he says. “We can go.”

Nicklas catalogues the street as they walk, the decrepit buildings, the boarded-up shopfronts. No alleyways to speak of, few nooks, few crannies. There has to be a way out, a way he can dodge the scanners and the winking black cameras that flash from the crumbling friezes. At some point this city must dissolve into countryside, but he has no idea where. And Ovechkin’s still here. He’s out on Ovechkin’s watch. Ovechkin won’t let him run. It’s on his head if Nicklas runs.

Nicklas grinds his teeth and contents himself to learn the streets, to take notice of the shuttered buildings and construction areas. Ovechkin is whistling something. He keeps bumping his big arm into Nicklas.

“Where… go?” Nicklas grinds his teeth, frustrated.

“Somewhere nice. I’ll show you.”

The dusty red brick sidewalk gives way to crumbling cement as the street crosses alongside some narrow, overgrown park. Trees with spindly bare branches, clumps of high brown grass. Ovechkin turns into the park. There must have been a path here at some point; patches of bare earth peek out amongst the dead weeds. No snow yet. It probably looks better hidden under snow. Swampy puddles have frozen over, the frozen grass crunches underfoot.

“It’s a little nice, isn’t it?” Ovechkin looks hopeful. He bumps into Nicklas’s arm again.

Maybe Nicklas can get Ovechkin to jerk him off in one of the thickets of trees. Doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of cameras out here.

This park is strange, a rectangular field in the middle of the city. A tumbledown pile of weathered marble on top of a low hill moated off by a circular road. A few battered cars trundle through, a big van belching smoke. Ovechkin doesn’t even glance at the van, keeps chattering about something Semin did at practice without a flinch. He leads them into a little section of forest, overgrown ash trees and brambles underfoot, and Ovechkin takes Nicklas’s hand in his.

Nicklas glances up at him. Ovechkin chews his lower lip and doesn’t look back. His hand is sweaty, warm against Nicklas’s cold fingers.

Nicklas should let go, but Ovechkin’s hand is warm. Nicklas forgot gloves.

A glimpse of stone winks through the trees. “What is that?”

“This used to be an important city.” Ovechkin holds a bramble out of Nicklas’s way as they step through to a small clearing. “Old. Not old like Russia, but old for North America.”

Weeds scale the pillars of a small domed marble structure in the center of the weedy clearing. Nicklas can hardly make out the letters. “District of Columbia,” he sounds out, careful. He wants to ask if that was the name of the district before they called it the Navy, but he doesn’t have the English. He tries to accept perpetual ignorance as his doom.

Ovechkin beams. “Russian letters, they’re different. I never knew what it said.”

They walk on. Ovechkin lets go of his hand reluctantly as they pass from the woods into another clearing, towards another great slab of dark stone.

Nicklas folds his arms over his chest. The wind is cold, biting at his exposed skin. Why is Ovechkin taking him here? Is this a test? The Union may not have torn down all of these memorials, but they had been left to rot on purpose.

“What we do.” Nicklas takes a short, sharp breath and tries again. “Doing. What are we doing.”

Ovechkin chews his lip, knocks their arms together. “It’s nice. A walk. Get out of Verizon, you know?”

Nicklas tries to relax his shoulders, his jaw.

Ovechkin brings Nicklas to a rectangular bench at the edge of a smooth pond, frozen dull white at the edges and glassy in the middle. Nicklas watches the reflection of the clouds in the mirror-bright surface.

“It’s —,” Ovechkin says.

Nicklas shakes his head. “I don’t understand.”

“—. Nice to look at, ah.” Ovechkin seems at a loss. “Not just nice, very…” He says another word in Russian. “You like to look at it, even though it hurts a little. Here.” He pats the left side of his chest. “But it’s good.”

Nicklas stares at him, his sharp blue eyes, his broken nose.

Ovechkin laughs. “I’m making it too complicated. It’s pretty, but more.”

 _Beautiful_. No one had needed to teach Nicklas that word yet. They didn’t use it in Verizon.

“It’s beautiful,” Nicklas says, testing the word out like bruised fruit. He looks out over the still pond, the trees, the buildings. He can feel Ovechkin looking at him. He moves his foot until it just brushes Nicklas’s shoe, and they sit there for a while.

Once Nicklas starts shivering in earnest they double back through the narrow swampy park and then north into the city. Washington grows a little more populated with every block: there hadn’t been anyone at all back by the park, the pond. Just a few rickety cars rumbling through, stray dogs, a handful of tired people in grey suits skirting the park in favor of the sidewalk.

It’s still not very populated. Half the buildings are boarded up, abandoned. 

They stop at a small shop and Ovechkin buys Nicklas a fizzy soda, presents it to him like a delicacy. He tucks a few more things away in his pockets, too fast for Nicklas to see.

Nicklas recognizes the red brick sidewalks, the close-together buildings as they approach Verizon. His stomach curdles. He imagines running. Maybe back the way they had come, back past the thickets of trees and crumbling buildings to bolt over the wide river. He could make it across the ice, if it was frozen solid. And then he’d be an easy target, with his black coat. He wouldn’t last thirty seconds.

Ovechkin hands the guard a little plastic package before they go back inside. Hand-warmers.

— — —

The team takes the train north to the Blue & Red. Fedorov swears teams used to fly more, not just when they played the West, but Nicklas finds that hard to believe. Who ever had that much fuel to waste on hockey?

Nicklas sits by the window and watches the icy countryside pass by: acres of snow, clusters of puffing factories, a few towering greenhouses. Then Baltimore, the most populous city in the Navy, thick with smoke and crowded with humanity. Nicklas doesn’t know why the owners haven’t relocate the team; Washington is a backwater in comparison.

The train slows to a stop at the border between the Navy and the Orange. Nicklas knows what to expect now; he fishes his PerT tags from under his clothes and waits for the guard to run them through the card reader, does his best not to stare at the gun at his hip.

They pick up an import in Philadelphia. Nicklas remembers him from Hershey: Russian, blonde, nervous. Both the Navy’s goalies are injured; he’ll be getting the start against Montreal. He looks ready to puke.

Ovechkin hovers like a new mother. He gets the Russian set up in the imports’ card game, makes him drink water, tells a relentless stream of loud jokes until the kid’s shoulders slip down from his ears.

Nicklas feels oddly raw, watching him fuss. He turns to the window and watches the city fade into a series of crumbling buildings. No PerT trackers in those, he’d guess. The outskirts of Washington look just the same. But even if he got that far—where would he go? How would he survive the night? If he were to try and escape, he’d have to wait for the summer. Find some contacts. Try for Hershey again, maybe.

The train chugs north through the Orange, up into the Navy & Gold.

The guards at the border to the Blue & Red are impatient, irritable. One doesn’t bother waiting for Nicklas to snap a PerT tag off himself; he grips the chain and yanks it hard enough that Nicklas knocks his forehead against the chair in front of him.

“Fucking imports,” the guard mutters, putting the tag through his card reader.

Nicklas stares at the gun at the guard’s hip and rides out the fury boiling up under his skin. His temples start to throb.

The guards file out of the compartment, and Ovechkin crouches in front of Nicklas, peering up into his face. “Backy? You okay?”

Nicklas nods, rubbing his forehead. “Head, a little bit.” He pats the seat-back.

Ovechkin scowls. “They hurt you?”

Nicklas wishes that vengeful, protective look on Ovechkin’s face wasn’t so satisfying. “No.”

Ovechkin abandons the baby Russian to sit stubbornly at Nicklas’s side until they reach Montreal. Nicklas, furious and silent, can’t be good company, but he doesn’t budge.

The game against the Blue & Red is rough, physical. Nicklas tries to concentrate; his head feels weird. He gets a goal off Ovechkin’s rebound during the power-play, and then Brooks Laich fights one of the Blue & Red defensemen for some reason or another. The new Russian goalie is doing well.

Nicklas drinks a lot of water during intermission and tries to tune everybody out. Boudreau’s railing at Nylander about something, he’s been playing like shit.

They go into the second short-handed on the remnants of the penalty kill, and Nicklas takes the face-off. He blinks rapidly; the puck’s gone blurry.

He plays by feel, by instinct, until somebody in a Blue & Red jersey runs right into his shoulder, the side of his head.

The linesman whistles, and Nicklas turns around. The Montreal guy clutches his face, blood seeping over his fingers. Ovechkin skates to the box, looking right at Nicklas the whole time. Four minutes, high-sticking.

Desire sweeps through Nicklas’s skin. His cheeks burn.

The locker room smears into a fanciful collection of colors. Nicklas drinks water and wills himself to focus. His stomach swirls unpleasantly, his mouth going sweaty and sour. He can feel Ovechkin watching him but he doesn’t look back.

They start the third tied 1-1, down a defenseman and Fedorov, whose ankle may not have been as healed as the trainers had claimed.

Nicklas’s temples throb. He takes shallow, short breaths. Fuck, fuck, fuck. He’s felt this before, sixteen at the factory, an accident, a migraine that had consumed him for hours. His brother had looked after him then. He puts his head down.

“Backy? Nicklas?” Ovechkin puts a hand on his back.

Nicklas wants to answer. He wants to be fine. He does not want to have to go into a white room with one of the trainers, alone. He can’t manage to respond.

“Coach?” Ovechkin sounds worried. Nicklas can’t follow the conversation, too consumed by his brain pummeling itself.

Somebody helps him down the tunnel. God, his head hurts, it _hurts_ , and he does not want to go with the trainer, doesn’t want to have strangers touch him when he’s like this.

“You need to calm down,” the trainer tells him. “You’re going to pass out.”

He sounds far away, like Nicklas is trying to hear him through a windstorm. The trainer deposits him in one of the Blue & Red’s trainers’ rooms. Nicklas sits on the bed and puts his head down. They give him a cold pack and a stinging shot and leave him alone. Nicklas loses track of time. Voices fade in and out. 

The trainer is talking, bright and cheerful English twice as hard to understand as usual. Nicklas catches  _head_ and  _not a concussion_ and  _have somebody watch him_ and misses the rest. 

Boudreau hums, thoughtful. “His road roommate is Nylander, I’ll get him to do it.”

 _No, no, no_. Nicklas doesn’t want him, his cold smile, his obvious discomfort.

Nylander helps him onto the bus. Moving is a cold, nauseous agony: every light hurts, every sound, every step. “Alex,” he croaks, once they’re sitting down. “Get Alex.”

Nylander mutters something unflattering. Nicklas doesn’t care, he doesn’t _care_ , he’s not above pleading. Please, just get him, please, _please—_ Nylander gets up. Nicklas keeps his eyes shut, his face hidden.

A big, warm body sits next to him. He smells familiar, rink shampoo and skin. _Alex_. Nicklas’s eyes swim with relief, spill over.

“Oh, Nicklas, Nicky,” Alex murmurs. He draws Nicklas into him, lets him hide his face in his soft sweatshirt and block out the world.

They get to the hotel somehow. Nicklas has no idea where they are, no idea what the lobby looks like or what floor they’re going to. Alex shepherds him into an elevator. Nicklas doesn’t vomit, but it’s a near thing.

“You want to go back to your room?” Alex brushes the hair from Nicklas’s face with gentle fingers. “Nicky, do you want to go back to your room?”

“No.” Nicklas’s eyes well up again, horribly. God, he doesn’t want to feel like this, to be like this in front of Nylander. “No, please, no.”

“Shh, it’s okay. You can stay with us, it’s fine.” Alex bundles Nicklas into the hotel room and helps him undress, gets him in bed. Nicklas curls himself into a tight ball and presses his face into the pillow. His head aches, aches, aches. The bed shifts, and there are fingers gently combing through his hair.

He falls asleep.

Nicklas wakes up in darkness, disoriented and achy. He eases himself out from under Alex to check the clock: it’s very early in the morning, and Nicklas’s head isn’t caving in anymore.

“Nicky?” Alex peers up at him blearily, eyebrows drawn together. “Your head?”

Nicklas feels worn out, drained, too exhausted to be embarrassed about how he acted. He lies back down. “Better.”

Alex palms the side of his face. Nicklas closes his eyes, still precipitously close to tears for no apparent reason. He kisses him to stop him looking at Nicklas like that.

Alex kisses him gently, carefully. Nicklas presses their legs together. There’s a shock of skin, and Nicklas runs his hand along the bare hot side of Alex’s body.

They move together under the blankets, skin to skin, a dirty, delicious slide. Alex holds Nicklas’s face in both hands and kisses him, grinds their hips together. His cock catches on Nicklas’s and bumps past, leaving wet smears on his skin. Alex fucks his tongue into Nicklas’s mouth. 

Nicklas can’t stop. He’s panting, clinging, digging his nails into Alex’s skin. He twines his leg around his ass and pulls him closer.

God, he wants to fuck. He wants to feel that big cock in him. He gropes Alex’s ass and almost groans at the weight of it, the heavy curve. Or he could—he could fuck Alex, he could turn him over onto his belly and slide into him. He imagines the look of shocked pleasure on Alex’s wide-open face, the way he looked when they first started fucking and everything Nicklas did seemed to crack something open within Alex, something deep and vulnerable and raw.

Nicklas shudders and comes.

Alex slides his dick through the slick mess on Nicklas’s belly once, twice, before he groans and shakes his way through his own orgasm. He collapses on top of him. Alex mouths vaguely at Nicklas’s neck and touches his hair. He’s a dead weight Nicklas should mind more than he does.

Nicklas likes the noisy huffs of his breath as he falls back asleep, the tickle of his eyelashes against his skin. He puts a hand over Alex’s densely muscled back. He’s so hot Nicklas will probably start sweating soon. He doesn’t move him.

Reality leaks in slowly, a cold and guilty flood. The hotel room, the yellow streetlight through the crack in the curtains, the messy spread of clothes over the carpet. The other bed. Oh, fuck. Nicklas’s stomach twists. He forces himself to look.

Semin’s pale eyes glint in the dim light.

Nicklas wants to hide his face. He can feel his skin flush. He feels like he needs to justify himself somehow, which is stupid. This sort of thing happens. Maybe they should have warned him to put the pillow over his head or go out to the ice machine or something, but it happens. His face gets hotter.

Semin blinks very slowly, like a cat, and then turns over and faces the wall.

Nicklas doesn’t fall asleep for a long time.

* * *

Alex doesn’t let Nicklas out of his sight on the train back to Washington.

He seems mostly better, maybe a little tired, but Alex can’t help but fuss. He should be checking in with Yasha, probably. He’d had a big night in Montreal, a strong showing in front of his first NHL net.

“Do you want more water? Food?” Alex got Nicklas a blanket, but the train’s still chilly. Maybe he should have two.

“I’m fine,” Nicklas says, not bothering to open his eyes. “Stop bother me.” The corners of his mouth twitch up.

Tenderness floods through Alex so strongly all he can do is sit still and ride it out. He lets Feds handle Yasha.

They’re the last to get to players’ quarters when they make it back to Washington. Nicklas takes his shoes off and is halfway down the hallway before he pauses, turns. “Are you coming?”

Alex yanks his shoes off and shoves them unceremoniously onto the pile by the door.

Nicklas goes straight to Alex’s room and gets on the bed. He pulls his shirt over his head. His hair is all messed up, tangled in golden clumps.

Alex stares. He’s not sure what to do with his hands, with his face, with his body.

“What? You don’t want?”

“I do,” Alex says, hoarse. He strips and gets on the bed. “You okay? Your head?”

Nicklas makes a face. “Fine. Just tired.”

“I just want to be—”

Nicklas cuts him off with a tongue in his mouth.

Normally they fuck fast. This time Nicklas holds Alex’s wrists and kisses him slow, rubs their dicks together until they’re both slippery and gasping. Alex likes Nicklas holding him down but he wants to touch him; he works his hands free and rolls Nicklas to his back.

Nicklas looks up at him, pupils dilated, his hair spread out over Alex’s pillow, mouth swollen and slick. Alex feels twelve feet tall.

“Red,” Alex says in English, running his hand down Nicklas’s flushed chest.

Nicklas looks away.

“Red,” Alex says again, in Russian. “You like this.”

Nicklas arches into his hands and doesn’t answer.

“What did they call you in Sweden?” Alex gets his fingers around Nicklas’s dick and jerks him slow.

Nicklas is pretending not to understand him, swallowing his noises and pressing his hips up into Alex’s grip.

Alex takes his hand away and strokes Nicklas’s pink skin, the beads of his small hard nipples. “Your little name. Family name? What did they call you? Was it Nicky?”

Nicklas makes a sound and turns over, presses his face into Alex’s pillow.

Alex runs his hand over Nicklas’s wide, smooth back. His skin is so soft, so hairless. A protective layer of soft fat over muscle. He’s like a seal. “You don’t have to tell me. I’m just curious.”

Nicklas turns his face until just one green eye is slightly visible, squinting up at him. He reaches back and pulls Alex forward, until their bodies touch.

Alex turns his attention to Nicklas’s ass. It’s worthy of consideration: big, heavy with muscle, firm to the touch. Nicklas grinds his hips into the bed when Alex squeezes it.

“For me, it was Sasha. This was very long ago. My parents called me Sashka, Sashenka. Sanya, sometimes.” Alex admires the way his hands look against Nicklas’s blue-pale skin. What luxury, what unbelievable freedom to be able to be allowed to touch someone like this, to be allowed to touch _Nicklas_ like this. “Now, of course, we have a Sanya.”

Nicklas breathes a little heavy, then turns his head so he can see Alex with both eyes. “Semin call you Sasha.”

“Yes. His name for me, so I don’t forget. You can call me Sasha, if you want.”

Nicklas looks up at him. “Sasha,” he says, in his odd accent.

Alex shudders. He feels wild, made bold by Nicklas’s skin, by the look in his eyes, by the full moon shining through the window. He covers Nicklas’s back with his body and buries his nose in Nicklas’s soft golden hair. He kisses the nape of Nicklas’s neck, gets a mouthful of hair. His cock slots right in between Nicklas’s ass cheeks; it’s deliriously good. Nicklas grabs Alex’s hair and clamps them together, won’t let go. It’s a little painful, the sweet aching kind of hurt. He groans long and low.

“Move,” Nicklas demands.

Alex grinds down.

“Not like…” Nicklas grunts, frustrated. He dislodges Alex to sit up, then reaches down to the floor to fumble for something.

“Cooking oil?”

Nicklas is so pink he nearly glows. He pours oil over his fingers and slicks Alex up, and then himself. He lies down on his side and pulls Alex up against his back, lifts his leg and reaches back to guide Alex’s cock in between his thighs. “Here.”

Alex starts to move, guided by Nicklas’s coaxing fingers. His dick slides in the warm soft place between Nicklas’s legs and Alex can’t stop himself from making noise, from going too fast. He holds Nicklas’s belly, his hip, leaves streaks of oil on his skin.

Nicklas jerks himself off and makes small, choked sounds. He goes very still in the way he does just before he comes, all tensed muscle like a rubber band about to snap.

“Nicky, Nicklas, I want to—” Alex puts his hand over Nicklas’s and feels him spill over both their fingers.

God, god. Alex’s hand is wet and he moves in between Nicklas’s legs with delirious, selfish thrusts. He’s clumsy; his dick keeps slipping out and up in between the cheeks of Nicklas’s ass. 

“That,” Nicklas gasps, reaching back to grab Alex’s hip. “There, that.”

Alex drives his cock through the crease of Nicklas’s ass and tries not to make a complete fool of himself when he comes, shaking through an orgasm that almost hurts.

“Nicke,” Nicklas says, after.

“What?” Alex can’t stop looking at Nicklas’s ass, the wet there. He should help him clean up, but he doesn’t want to. Not yet.

“They call me Nicke. My small name.”

Alex wants to hold the name carefully in his hands like a bird’s egg. Nicklas isn’t even looking him in the eye, just examining a mole on Alex’s arm with an air of forced ease.

“Nicke,” Alex tries. “I’m saying it right?”

Nicklas shuts his eyes. “Yes.”

Alex traces the side of Nicklas’s face, his soft cheek, his small mouth. “Nicke. I can call you this?”

Nicklas squeezes his eyes together more tightly, his eyebrows drawing together in the middle. He nods, barely. For a second, Alex thinks he’s about to cry. Then Nicklas pushes himself off the bed and starts to dress, collecting his clothes from wherever they’d thrown them earlier in their haste.

Nicklas pauses at the door. He looks like he does during a hard shift: sweaty, a little scared. “Goodnight,” he says, and closes the door behind him.

Alex collapses onto his back, feeling like he’d just been bag-skated.

* * *

Nicklas does his level best to avoid Alex, which is a little difficult when they’re both on the power-play and they skate on the same line. He stays away from him in players’ quarters, keeps to himself. He feels like Nylander, avoiding everyone, hiding in his room.

It’s—awful. Nicklas can’t look at Alex without feeling overwhelmed, ashamed, like he’d given something away he hadn’t meant to let slip.

Winter drones on. Snow piles up in precipitous drifts, and even the North Americans, who have blanket permission to leave Verizon, rarely seem to brave the cold.

Verizon is a self-contained universe, a snow globe full of tiny people. A few of the North Americans live outside of the ice center, the married ones, and they come into the locker room like emissaries from another world.

A rash of injuries sweep the Navy. Mike Green hurts his shoulder, Fedorov’s ankle injury lingers and Semin gets a nasty cross-check to the back that sidelines him for weeks. Chris Clark has a fractured forearm and Tom Poti strained his groin.

Semin is terrible injured, whiney and demanding and prone to getting into trouble out of boredom. He accepts Alex’s affection one minute and then rejects it the next. Sometimes he wants to be touched and other times he’ll flinch away from Alex’s embrace, twitching like a startled cat.

Alex doesn’t seem to mind, but Nicklas does. If he’s going to—if Nicklas is going to stay away from Alex, which he has to, he wants someone to look out for him. 

“It’s better this way,” Nylander tells him in the cafeteria line. “You’re not in the line of fire.”

Nicklas watches Alex and the Russians chatter at the table by the window. He goes to sit by himself.

* * *

“Stop sulking.”

Alex turns his face into his pillow. The Navy is back in stupid Montreal and Sema is smug, recovered from his latest injury and satisfied with a two goal game and no penalties, for once. Instead Alex has been racking up the minutes: tonight he got called for _diving_ , which is unbelievable bullshit. He didn’t score, and they lost.

Sema sighs, toying with his deck of cards. “I don’t know why you’re being so dramatic.”

The last time Alex was here Nicklas slept in his arms. It feels like a delirious dream. For nearly six months he had Nicklas Bäckström crawling into his bed at night, golden and grumpy, his hands remaking Alex’s body like he was sculpting something new out of old clay.

Life has shrunk back to normal. The rink, the bus, the train. Practice, games, the hated cold tub. For his whole life Alex lived for the bright lights of a hockey stadium, thousands of eyes on him, a puck cutting past a goalie into the net. He never thought anything else could ever feel so good.

Alex turns towards the window. “I’m not talking about this.”

“What shall we talk about instead, Sasha?” Sema’s voice is suspiciously bright. “Seryozha and Vitya and their mysterious meetings?”

Alex turns over to fix Sema with a suspicious look. “What do you know about that?”

“Don’t worry. They haven’t betrayed your deal.” Sema shuffles showily, a feathery fan of cards. “Neither of them will tell me anything, no matter how much I badger them.”

Alex lets out a breath. “Well. Good.”

“We’ve known each other half our lives, and you’re still trying to lead me around by the nose. You realize I’m older than you?”

“Well, you’re stupider,” Alex says, knowing very well that isn’t at all true. Sema came to Moscow knowing all sorts of odd things, poetry and history and the names of trees. Alex isn’t stupid, but they didn’t teach that sort of thing at Dynamo. Sema could point at a bird and tell Alex what it was named, but he didn’t know how to do the most obvious stuff, like tie his skates right or make eye contact with the coach even when he was tired, to make it look like he was listening.

Nicklas is like that, a little. He doesn’t fake things well.

“You know what they’re doing. You know they’re, I don’t know, in contact with _somebody_. God, Sasha, don’t you want to _do_ something?” Sema throws his cards down, stroppy like he’s about to commit a stupid penalty.

 _Do_ something? Alex looks up at the pocked hotel ceiling. He hasn’t given any thought at all to anything outside of the team bubble in months. He’s thought about hockey and Nicklas and keeping Sema off Coach’s shit-list, and nothing else.

“It is what it is.” Alex settles back into the bed. “I do a few things for Feds and Vitya out of respect, Sema. We owe them a lot. But we’ve got it better than most, you know? We’re lucky to be with the Navy.”

Sema shoots him a poisonous look. “If you say so.”

Alex sighs and turns over. It’s like Sema forgets why they came here in the first place. Or maybe like he spent so much of his life trying to claw his way out of places he never learned how to stay put. 

The Navy loses three in a row, and when Alex visits the front desk to get a day pass on a free afternoon he is politely, firmly rebuffed.

“The weather,” the girl behind the desk explains, looking rueful. “I’m sorry, Ovi. They’re saying it’s too dangerous.”

Alex looks out the window. White swirling snow, icy street. He’s been out in much worse. “You’re sure? Not even just for a walk? I’m like a dog, you know, I’ve gotta run around or I’m gonna start chewing shoes.”

The girl laughs but shakes her head. “You could try again in a week or so? Maybe the snow will let up.”

Alex thanks her for her help and retraces his steps back to players’ quarters. Feds and Vitya will be cross. He’s got an envelope wedged into his coat lining, and it’ll just have to stay there.

The Navy takes the bus north into the Black & Gold the next day. Alex plays cards and tries to focus, tries not to glance over at Nicklas’s golden head every five seconds.

He’s glad they’re playing the Black & Gold. He’s feeling itchy. He wants a fight.

Pittsburgh is brutal, which is perfect. The crowd erupts in boos whenever Alex touches the puck, and from the way the Black & Gold are gunning for him their scouting report must have been a one man hit list.

Zhenya Malkin plays like a mad dog, frothing at the mouth. Alex remembers those moods of his; he’ll be just as likely to score a hat trick as he will get called for three penalties in a row. Possibly both. He mows Alex down by the blue line and again by the crease, cross-checking him in the back once he’s down.

“I _have_ been playing well, thanks for noticing,” Alex calls, as Zhenya lumbers towards the penalty box.

The rest of the Black & Gold seem to agree. Their left D-man apparently thinks cross-checking him to the face is a legal procedure and the linesmen agree but whatever, they can’t stop them. Alex can feel the win boiling in his blood. They’re going to take this fucking game.

Alex checks Crosby late in the second period, clears the puck while Crosby crumples to the ice along the half-wall like a flimsy tent in the wind, then skates back to the crease to block the shooting lane.

The Black & Gold have the puck. Alex skates for his guy.

A bellow from the bench. “Man on! Ovi!”

Alex whips his head around just in time to see Matt Cooke thundering up behind him.

Alex sees Cooke square up for the hit, but he doesn’t see him light up his stick until the knife is a half inch away from his chin. Alex flinches back. The knife catches his jersey and rips a slice through the fabric as Cooke pushes past him, hurtling across the ice.

The whistle goes. Alex skates to the bench to get a new jersey, his heart thudding in his ears.

“Close one,” Feds says, making room for him on the bench.

Alex mops his face with his torn jersey, a little annoyed that Feds wants to go into it. The hit was fine. Cooke only had his knife over Alex’s chest protector. It wasn’t like he was going to cause any real damage. He’s seen way worse. Sure, he’ll take a penalty if they get one, but he doesn’t want to make a big deal out of a textbook borderline dirty hit. He’s not a whiner.

“Looks like the Swede isn’t too happy with the play.” 

Alex lowers the jersey.

Nicklas circles Cooke and the ref at center ice, his face dark. Two minutes interference. A little lenient, maybe, since Cooke had lit his stick when neither of them had the puck, but Alex will take the power play.

Nicklas glowers as Cooke skates to the box, and foolish hope seeps into Alex’s skin.

Nicklas keeps looking at him during second intermission. Alex wants to preen, wants to rejoice, wants to drag Nicklas into an equipment closet and kiss him until his lips are raw, but he can’t. He does spend a little longer in less clothes than he needs to, checking to make sure Nicklas is watching him.

Alex rides the adrenaline into the third period. Zhenya’s an asshole, Crosby’s an asshole, Cooke’s an asshole, the entire province of the Black & Gold is full of assholes and Alex scores a minute into the period to spite every last one of them, and then he scores again.

Nicklas is a genius, a fucking genius, he sauces the puck through a knot of scrambling defensemen right to Alex’s tape at the crease; it’s the easiest goal he’s scored in years. 

Alex howls into Nicklas’s beaming face and thinks _this isn’t over, it’s not over yet._

The Navy are up two with five minutes on the clock when Crosby sets up for a face-off against Nicklas. Alex waits by the hashmarks, his entire body focused on clearing the damn puck out of the zone. This game is _theirs_ , and the Black & Gold can’t fucking have it.

“It’s too bad Cookie wasn’t a little more accurate,” Crosby tells Nicklas, his mouth twisting. He widens his stance, getting into position. “Maybe next time he will be, eh?”

Alex rolls his eyes. Cute, Crosby.

Crosby wins the face-off. Nicklas deftly reaches his stick out, hooks it around Crosby’s skate and watches as he tumbles the ice.

Whistle.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Crosby whines, scrambling to his feet. “The linesman is right here, nineteen, he has _eyes_.”

Nicklas glances at him and skates straight to the box without waiting for the call.

Zhenya grimaces. “What are you so happy about? Your PK is like wet tissue paper.”

Alex beams wider. “And here I thought you still weren’t talking to me, Zhenya, I’m touched.”

Zhenya swears softly and skates off, a teetering giant constructed primarily of temper tantrums and smugness, as usual. It’s nice when things don’t change.

Alex barely watches the penalty kill. Nicklas is in the penalty box, pink and sweaty and fuming, so deliriously beautiful Alex doesn’t know how the attendant can look away.

They win, 6-3. Alex stops Zhenya in the handshake line. “You’re all right? They’re still treating you well?”

Zhenya glares. He’s got a haircut that doesn’t do him any favors; long enough to hang out the back of his helmet. It makes him look even more like a basset hound than usual.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Alex drops his hand and moves on, laughing. Zhenya. He has no idea what stick is up his ass but he’s sure it’s enormous, and possibly spiked.

Fuck, he loves playing Pittsburgh.

Well, he loves playing Pittsburgh when they win.

— — —

When Alex gets a front office summons he assumes it’s probably some photo opportunity, maybe some sticks that need to be signed, but George McPhee is waiting for him inside the door.

George smiles. “Alex. Good to see you.”

“Good to see you,” Alex echoes automatically. Shit, he hopes this isn’t about Sema. Or Feds. Or Vitya. Or _Nicklas_ , surely Nicklas isn’t in trouble. He’s been on a kind of penalty streak lately, but he’s been putting up points. That’s what really counts.

George ushers him into his office and sits him down.

Alex tries to look friendly and accommodating and not like he’s about to fidget enough to break his chair. McPhee’s a small guy and his chairs match.

George folds his hands together on top of his wide oak desk. “It’s time for us to talk about a contract extension.”

Alex blinks, surprised. “An extension?”

Alex hasn’t heard a word about any kind of contract since he was a teenager about to board a rickety plane to North America. Mostly it was _you play here now_ and a new sweater to pull over his head.

George nods. “We’re very happy with your play, Alex, and with your influence on the team—for the most part.”

Alex bounces his leg and tries not to break the dinky excuse for a chair. “For the most part?”

“You set a good example. You’re hard-working, you play hard every night. You’re obviously an outstanding talent. We wouldn’t want anything marring that reputation in the league, or within the team. You’re too important to the organization.” George’s face hardly moves. “Do you understand?”

Alex nods, even though he has no idea what in the long line of shit he probably shouldn’t have done George is talking about, exactly.

“Good. In recognition of your importance to us, we’d like to offer you a thirteen year extension.”

“What?” Alex must be hearing things, forgetting his English numbers. _Thirteen_?

“Thirteen years, with the standard four cup clause, the usual morality conditions apply.” George passes a fat stack of paper across the desk. “Limited movement. That’s unusual for an import, but you’re a priority for us and we want the contract to reflect that.”

Alex flips through the contract, wishing he’d learned how to read English. It’s all a bunch of shapes. It sounds like the deal all the North Americans talk about. Do some number of years, or win some number of cups, and then they get to be Free Agents. Alex hasn’t ever thought too hard about it. The League kept him from starving, kept him out of the cold. Drafted him, and reunited him with Sema. Believed in his hockey. Believed in him. That’s been enough. He never considered Free Agency. “Thirteen years… And I would be a Free Agent?”

“More or less.”

Alex looks up.

“You know as well as I do, Alex, that the Union’s relationship with imports can be… fraught. I’m prepared to do whatever I can for you, so long as you stick to the stipulations of the contract. Mr. Leonsis agrees. He’s sorry not to be here today.” McPhee’s mouth tightens. “He wanted to pass along that he’s proud of you.”

“Oh. Tell him thank you.” Alex looks down at his contract. He can’t read the words, but he knows where he’s meant to sign.

Vitya and Kolzig have fourteen years in the NHL. Nylander has seventeen. Feds has nearly two decades. Thirteen years with the Red & White, two years with the Gold, two years with the Silver & Blue, and now he’s on the Navy. He’s won three Stanley Cups. Three Cups, nineteen years in the NHL, a living legend, he’s still not a Free Agent.

Alex signs.

* * *

The day the Navy plays Red & White the guys are excited, jittery, hitting each other with towels.

Nicklas thinks it’s because the Red & White were top of the league last year, and the Navy are clawing their way out of a terrible reputation one high-octane win at a time. The rare inter-conference matchup could raise the Navy’s profile, give their fanbase reason to hope. 

Nicklas has no idea where Detroit is. He pictures high plateaus and low valleys, mountains, coastline. _The Red & White_. Maybe their province is as successful as their hockey club. From what Nicklas can grasp from neutered media reports and the run-down streets of Washington, the Navy has more in common with its underdog team.

Boudreau has Fedorov playing top line center instead of Nicklas. Nicklas should be grateful, probably. Emotions run high during games and the bleed is dangerous, it’s easy to mistake a goal for friendship, a retaliatory penalty for love.

He’s resentful of Fedorov all the same, angry with his new line-mates, aching for a penalty call so he can set the plays for Alex during the power-play.

The game is—weird.

On the surface it looks choppy, feisty. Guys pair up all over the ice between whistles, jostling each other, spitting insults into each others’ faces. They _sound_ like insults, a barrage of Russian chirping, but when Nicklas skates closer conversations shift into focus like a telescope tightening on a distant scene.

Flash shoves a Detroit winger at the goal line. “Heard anything about Jagr?”

“Not since he was on the Red & Blue,” the winger grunts, pushing back. “I’m not worried. You know Jags. He’ll turn up.”

The North Americans are cheerfully oblivious. Nicklas is a little surprised; he’d assumed their guys would have picked up more Russian by now.

“Nice hustle, Flash,” Brooks Laich calls from the bench, shaking a fist. “Way to show it to ‘em!”

Fedorov can’t seem to leave Detroit’s speedy Russian center alone. Nylander’s voice rings in Nicklas’s ears. _The Russians are deep in something._ Nicklas watches Fedorov from the bench, straining his ears, furious at every slap of a stick, every shout from the crowd. He glances at Alex. He doesn’t look any different from normal— bouncing from skate to skate between whistles, eyes hungrily tracking the puck—but he must know. He must know something’s going on.

A Red & White defenseman dogs Nicklas down the ice, blocking him out of play with insultingly effortless technique. The whistle blows and Nicklas stops just in time to catch a wave of snow from the D-man’s skates. He grins.

Nicklas grits his teeth. This fucking guy. No holding, no stick fouls, just a supernatural ability to position himself exactly where Nicklas wants to go every fucking time.

Nicklas chews his mouthguard and tries not to get frustrated. Angry is good, angry works, but if he’s frustrated he’ll start making stupid mistakes.

Lidstrom leans on his stick. “Have you guys played the Green this season?”

Lidstrom emerges from the swarm of Red & White sweaters like a camera has brought him into focus. Older, wizened, with light eyes and a cleft chin: he’s speaking Swedish. Nicklas stares.

“You are Swedish, aren’t you? I’m looking for Joel Lundqvist, if you happen to run into him. Come on, look a little angrier. I’ve been keeping you out of the game, rookie.”

Nicklas cracks his jaw, anger bubbling back up in his chest.

Play resumes and Lidstrom comes down hard. Detroit plays fast and forces the Navy into their own zone. Nicklas picks up the puck along the half-wall and carries it behind the goal-line, picking up Lidstrom like a shadow on his way around the crease. He can feel Lidstrom a breath behind him. Nicklas wheels through the neutral zone with the puck on the tip of his stick, crosses the blue line and runs into all of the Red & White at once.

The wingers forecheck hard and a stick tangles in his legs; he crashes to the ice on his belly with two defensemen ahead and two forwards behind; he manages to control the puck and sweep it towards Mike Green.

The siren blares: goal.

Nicklas staggers to his feet, eying Lidstrom as he heads towards Green to celebrate.

Lidstrom visibly struggles to keep from smiling. “I won’t worry about you, then,” he shouts.

Mike Green beams and thumps Nicklas’s helmet. “Damn, buddy, that breakout! What a beauty. Is that guy saying stuff to you? That’ll teach him, eh?”

Now that Nicklas is paying attention, the names on the backs of the Red & White jerseys are unmistakable. Lilja, Kronwall, Zetterberg, Samuelsson, Lidstrom. His heart thuds in his ears. Detroit has even more imports than Washington, and nearly all of them are Swedes.

“We haven’t played the Green,” Nicklas tells Lidstrom he skates into position for his next shift. “But there’s a Lundqvist on the Red & Blue.”

“The one I’m looking for is a forward.” Lidstrom bangs his stick on the ice. “Thanks anyway, kid.”

Nicklas can’t focus on the game. He watches the Swedes, watches Fedorov dog Datsyuk, watches their mouths move between whistles. He can’t be the only one who’s distracted but they play well, tied after the second period, so Nicklas is surprised when Boudreau stomps into the locker room during second intermission, his round face florid and creased with irritation.

“Semin, over here.” Boudreau jerks his head to the side.

Semin darts a look towards Alex and then slinks up to the white board in full view of the entire room. Nicklas glances around the stalls. This can’t be normal, surely—a coach targeting a guy in front of the entire team? No one reacts except Alex, who shifts in his seat until Fedorov tugs him back down. Alex’s face shutters.

“ _Another_ penalty, Semin? What is this, the minors?” Boudreau shakes his head. “You need to develop some maturity in your game, son. It’s selfish play, that’s what it is, and what does it do? It costs us a goal. Distractions! You guys need to prioritize your team, your play. This shit may play in Russia, but it’s not how we do things in the Union.”

Most of the guys look politely away as Boudreau rails at Semin, fiddling with their pads, wrapping their sticks, finding excuses to face away from the spectacle. Nicklas doesn’t. Semin keeps his face absolutely still, a tawny statue in hockey pads.

Boudreau finishes his diatribe and leaves, swearing to himself under his breath. Tension seeps out of the locker room like a balloon deflating. As the door swings shut, Nicklas glimpses the unassuming figure of George McPhee waiting outside for Boudreau. Light glints off his wire-framed glasses.

“Whoo, tough one, boys!” Brooks Laich whistles. “Big one. Gotta have it!”

The North Americans echo back in a familiar chorus. “Gotta be ready! Come on, boys.”

“They’re on a losing streak, boys. We gotta keep it going!”

Nicklas eyes the Russians. The import side of the locker room remains conspicuously preoccupied with their sticks, their tape, their skates.

“He doesn’t even have the most penalties on the team,” Alex mutters to Fedorov. “It’s me. I do.”

Fedorov clicks his tongue. “Focus, Alex. Win the game. It’s better for all of us if we do.”

Nicklas watches Alex’s downcast face, his wet hair curling over his forehead. Stripped down to his base layers, Alex’s body is uniquely obscene in a room full of half-naked men. Nicklas wants so badly to touch the back of his neck, his heavy knee, his blunt calloused fingertips. The depth of his want frightens him, fathomless as a chasm in the sea.

Conversation dries up in the third. Alex puts the team on his back and carries them through it, sinks two goals in two minutes and plays like an absolute terror. Nicklas gets an assist he doesn’t deserve and they take the game, 4-2.

Lidstrom stops Nicklas in the handshake line. “You looking for anybody, rookie?”

Nicklas shakes his head slowly. 

“If you need anything, you’re looking for anybody—you talk to Fedorov, okay? You can trust him.” Lidstrom squeezes his hand. “Keep your head up.”

Nicklas watches Fedorov in the locker room. He undresses methodically, grim despite the win. Blurry tattoos litter his legs, his forearms. _The Russians are deep in something_. Not the Russians. Fedorov. Maybe Viktor Kozlov as well. Semin and Alex jostled the Red  & White guys as much as anyone else but they didn’t get chatty, didn’t box Datsyuk up against the boards and jabber into his ear.

That night Nicklas pauses outside Alex’s bedroom door. He touches the wood, dented from a thousand ill-advised hallway games. He wants to know what Alex knows. He wants to ask him about Fedorov, about the Red & White, about Boudreau’s pointed diatribe. He wants to crawl into Alex’s bed and lose himself in the consuming heat of their bodies moving together. He shuts his eyes. God, he wants it, the white-out of pleasure, Alex’s big calloused hands and his red mouth.

Sometimes Alex looks at Nicklas like he could wheel through to the core of him, straight to the soppy heart of him, blowing past his defenses like a breakaway goal.

Nicklas forces himself to move. He can’t risk it.

* * *

Alex corners Feds in the showers the day after the Detroit game, because he’s mad as hell but he’s respectful enough to have this discussion with water running to appease Feds’ ancient paranoid mind.

“Whatever you and Vitya doing, whatever you were running your mouths about with Datsyuk, you’ve got to _stop it_. At least for now. You heard Boudreau. The front office can tell we’re distracted and they’re going after Sema. _Again_.”

“Is that what they’re doing?” Feds wipes water from his eyes. “Look a little closer, Alex.” 

Alex manfully resists the desire to throw shampoo at Feds’ head. He doesn’t remind Feds that the last time the brass took a disliking to Sema they sent him down to the farm team to freeze for years. The first year was okay, they had each other, but the second year Alex went to Washington and Sema stayed down. Thirty-eight goals, sixty points and frostbite: a successful season. Feds wasn’t in Washington then. He didn’t see Sema after, the way his toenails fell off and how he flinched at the sound of door-hinges.

“We’ve got to stay in the playoff race.” Alex sets his jaw. “We’ve got to, Feds, you understand? We need to play well.”

Feds laughs, bitter. “Yes, Alex, I’m excruciatingly aware I need to perform.”

“Well. Good.” Alex lingers for an awkward few seconds, and then breaks for the exit. He’s got to stretch before he goes upstairs for his game day nap; he can’t exchange strangely loaded dialogue with Feds all day.

He scores a hat-trick that night and basks in the roar of the crowd, Coach’s ebullient praise, the approving nod from George after the game. He’s unstoppable, he’s a wrecking ball. He never wants to leave the ice.

The Navy is sitting at the top of the Southeast Division and god, surely that’s enough. They’re doing everything asked of them. Sema scored a highlight reel breakaway goal, Nicklas and Feds both tallied three points, Mike Green managed four. Five penalties, but they won the damn game, didn’t they? What does it matter?

The media doesn’t agree.

Alex sits in his base layers and endures a barrage of questions, doing his best to stay positive and upbeat.

A reporter pushes the microphone through the knot of people, angling it towards Alex.“Alex Semin had two unfortunate sticking offenses in as many nights, both that lead to goals against. Have you talked to your teammate about his penchant for penalties?”

Alex makes eye contact with the reporter, willing her to understand. “Sometimes he just wants the puck so bad, you know? He’ll do anything to get it. But he plays great for us. Sometimes he makes mistakes. Everybody makes mistakes.”

The reporter doesn’t look convinced. “Why do you think the Navy has such a penalty problem? Is it a lack of discipline?”

Alex leans back. “Uh, I think we are all passionate guys. We care about the team. We want to win. Sometimes, we’re young, we make mistakes.”

“Some other teams are saying you guys tend to push the limits.”

Alex grins. “Of goals? Big scores?”

“I think you know what I mean, Ovi.”

Alex shakes his head. “No, I don’t think we play dirty, if that’s what you mean. I think we play our game. We play hard, you know? We love the game. We want to win.”

“You don’t think your growing reputation as a reckless player is deserved?”

Alex laughs, surprised. “I haven’t heard it that way, but you know. I play a big game. Some guys might be worried.”

The reporter’s eyes glint. “Worried?”

“Not like—I don’t hit just to hit,” Alex says, feeling wrong-footed. When did they start talking about him? Shouldn’t they be talking about how they won the damn game? He had a hat-trick. He didn’t stab anybody. “I’m just trying to help the team. Like any guy.”

Across the room, Brooks Laich says something about selfish penalties, shaking his head solemnly. “We need to focus on self-improvement,” he explains. “Cultivating our best qualities. Some of the guys, maybe they’re a little younger, maybe this is a little newer to them. Some of them might need guidance. We’re lucky here, we’ve got a great group of guys around us. Our Morality Officer, our coaches, they give amazing guidance to the team.”

 _Cultivating our best qualities_. It makes Alex feel like a plant. Like Brooks Laich wants to come at him with pruning shears and potting soil.

He tries to focus on the rest of the questions, and only partially succeeds.

— — —

Alex heads to the trainers’ room after practice and nearly knocks into the trainer as he’s on his way out, absently checking something on a clipboard.

“Hey, Alex, just give me a minute and I’ll get you looked at,” he says, and waves him in.

Nicklas lays on one of the tables in bunched up navy shorts and nothing else, an acre of bare skin that steals the breath from Alex’s lungs.

Nicklas sits up, frowning. He opens his mouth to speak, but before he can say a word the lights flicker and a voice crackles over the intercom.

“A total center lockdown is now in effect,” it announces pleasantly, and the overhead lights shut off. Emergency lights boot up a second later, casting Nicklas’s skin in a sickly green haze. The door clicks shut. Locked.

Alex tries the door anyway. Locked. He scans the room. The windows are a stretch, but maybe an air vent? Could he _fit_ in an air vent? Would he just crash through even if he did? He kneels down in front of one of the vents, peering inside. That thing couldn’t fit a regular sized adult, let alone a hockey player.

Nicklas tightens his jaw. “What is this?”

“Lockdown,” he says, testing the windows. Maybe he can break the glass? Is the glass even breakable? He peers outside. No ledge, no chance. Fuck.

“What are you doing?”

Alex clambers on top of a table and tests the ceiling panels. “What does it look like?”

Nicklas swears in Swedish. “Get _down_ ,” he demands, sliding off the table. “You will break the… Up, you know. You’ll break it.”

Alex wrinkles his nose. Nicklas is right. There’s no chance the ceiling is strong enough. He climbs down and scans the room again. There has to be something. Maybe if he just slams into the door a lot? It can’t be _that_ strong. He’ll check the door hard, and it’ll break. Feasible. That’s how it happens in movies.

“No,” Nicklas says firmly. “Door is metal.”

“You read minds?” Alex goes to test Nicklas’s theory. Damn, he’s right again. Paint over cold metal, frigid under his fingertips. Power’s out; no heat.

“I tell you.” Nicklas folds his arms over his chest, shivering.

Alex curses. “Wear clothes,” he snaps, reaching for Nicklas’s sweatshirt and throwing it at him. “Shit, there has to be a way out of here.”

Nicklas pulls his sweatshirt over his head and then finds his pants, which is good, because Alex can’t afford to be distracted by his delicate calves right now. “Why do you need to get out? What is go on?”

Alex pushes at the door. Who the fuck makes metal doors? He examines the hinges. Can he break a metal door? Maybe if he beats the hinges off with one of the chairs? God, he’s an idiot. This is useless. He puts his hands over his face and breathes, panic swelling beneath his breastbone. Maybe he should try the window after all. 

“Alex?”

Alex keeps his hands over his face. If he breaks the window, he can—what? Rappel down? Break a different window? His chest tightens.

“Alex, look at me.” Nicklas pries Alex’s hands from his face. “Breathe.”

Alex breathes, staring into Nicklas’s clear green eyes.

“Okay. Stop try to break the room with your body. I will help.” Nicklas drops Alex’s hands and rummages through the trainer’s equipment, coming out with a pair of scissors he promptly dismantles, tweezers, an assortment of paperclips and a screwdriver from a helmet repair kit. He sets everything on the floor in front of the door and begins to go through each tool, testing them in the lock.

He takes a while. Alex looks longingly at the window. He could use bandages or something to rappel, probably.

“No,” Nicklas says, moving from the screwdriver to the paperclips. “One minute.”

It is not one minute. It is _many_ minutes, possibly one hundred indeterminable minutes. “I think I can try the window,” Alex announces, and then something in the door clicks.

“You have bad ideas,” Nicklas says, sitting back on his heels. He wipes his face, looking very pleased with himself. “Okay, the door is open. Let’s go.”

Alex shakes his head. “It’s too risky. I could run into someone on the way. You should stay here; the trainer knows we were here. He’ll know we got out.”

Nicklas shoots him an unimpressed look. “If you want to do alone, I will lock the door again.”

Alex lunges for the door but Nicklas is too quick, forcing his paperclips back into the doorknob. He raises his eyebrows. “So where are we going?”

Alex deflates. “Players’ quarters.”

“Okay.” Nicklas stands up and stows his lock-picking tools into the pockets of his sweatpants. “Do you want to take point? Or me?”

Alex takes point. He gets the impression Nicklas is only letting him because Alex got dangerously close to a tantrum about it, and he does know the ice center better than Nicklas does.

They weave through little-used corridors and vacant stairwells, freezing at sudden noises and ducking into open doors when they hear voices coming.

Nicklas looks both ways in the vacant corridor before he speaks. “Why players' quarters?”

Alex speeds up along the inner wall of the hallway. “When we had lockdown before, like in juniors, they always searched us for contraband.”

“What is this?”

“Things we aren’t allowed.” Alex leads them into another stairwell and they’re silent until they reach the top floor.

“You have… contraband?”

Alex shrugs. “A little, but it’s not me.” He pokes his head around the corner. “They’re on Sema’s ass lately.”

“Penalties,” Nicklas agrees. He creeps behind Alex with fluid steps. “How will you get into his room?”

 _Shit_. Alex hadn’t thought of that. “We’ll just go,” he decides. “We’ll see when we get there.”

Nicklas gets a hand in the back of Alex’s sweatshirt and pulls him back. “Absolutely not,” he hisses.

Alex turns around, scowling. Nicklas is wasting time. What does he think they’re doing, a leisurely tour? They don’t even know what they’re up against yet, what use is a solid plan? “Well what do _you_ want to do?”

Nicklas scowls back. “Not go straight into a Morality Officer or a _guard_ , Alex. What the fuck?”

“We don’t know anyone is there!” Alex’s whisper becomes more of a muffled shout. He tries to modulate his voice. “Come on, we’re wasting time.”

Nicklas grabs a handful of Alex’s sweatshirt again, possibly as insurance in case he bolts. “Do they search the Union guys?”

Alex pauses, surprised. He really had been planning on bolting. “Uh, no, not usually.”

“We go through the roof deck. Semin’s room is—”

“Overlooking the roof deck,” Alex finishes, wonder flooding his chest. Nicklas is not only beautiful, but also the smartest man in the world, and Alex will never try to run away from him again.

“We need to get to the Union back door.”

Well, extenuating circumstances. Alex makes for the corner. Nicklas drags him back by the arm.

“That way takes too long,” Alex whines, trying to extract his arm from Nicklas’s grip.

Nicklas doesn’t let go. “The North Americans have own door onto the deck, so we won’t need to go through the common room. Where people will be. A lot of people.”

Alex scowls. “It’s farther! All the way on the west side of the building, two more hallways!”

“You want get there at all?”

Alex shakes his arm free. “Fine,” he grunts, and they change course to go the long way.

Alex has actually never seen the North Americans’ back door, as it’s tucked into a faraway corner of fucking nowhere. Apparently, it’s glass. Mike Green watches them approach with his mouth open wide enough Alex can see what he’s been eating. 

Nicklas knocks.

Mike Green cranes his neck back to check down the hallway, then turns back to them. _Locked_ , he mouths.

Nicklas pulls paperclips out of pockets and gets to work. This door takes a lot less time than the last one. He pulls it open within a two minutes, long enough for Alex to seriously consider body-slamming the glass.

“What are you guys doing?” Mike Green shuts the door behind them. “We’re on lockdown!”

Nicklas ignores him. “Is anyone here?”

Greenie shakes his head.

Alex is already halfway down the hallway. He’s never seen the Union dorms. They have thicker doors, locks, a living room as well as a kitchen. And, most importantly, a door out to the deck. He tries the door. Locked.

Nicklas shoulders him aside to kneel in front of the lock.

“Come on, come on,” Alex chants, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He could definitely break this door. It’d be easy, and then they could blame it on Brooks Laich.

“What’s going on? Guys?” Greenie hovers behind Nicklas. “Should you be doing this? Are you in trouble, or something?”

“Alex, check who in the common room,” Nicklas mumbles through a mouthful of paperclips.

Alex leaps at the chance to do something. He edges his way down the hallway, keeping out of sight of the glass inset in the door, until he’s close enough to peek through. That Morality Officer who’s been hanging around, one of the assistant coaches, two men wearing polo shirts looking bored. He’s got no idea who might actually be in import quarters, but the door is open. He creeps back to Nicklas.

“Bunch of guys. You done?”

Nicklas doesn’t turn around. “You want to do this yourself?”

Alex grunts with frustration. If Nicklas would just let him throw a chair through the glass door this could all be significantly easier. “M.O, Forsythe, two guys maybe front office, I don’t know.”

“What are you guys saying?” Greenie looks between them. “Come on, the only Russian I know is, like, pass. Or open.”

“Open,” Nicklas says in English, and opens the door. Freezing air hits Alex’s face and he barrels through before Nicklas is finished extracting his paperclips from the lock. “Thanks help, Greenie. Don’t tell.”

“Uh. Okay?” Greenie watches them leave. “Good luck, I guess?”

“Shut door,” Nicklas tells him, and Greenie shuts the door.

They shuffle on hands and knees underneath the windows of the Union players. The glass doors to the common room present a different problem.

“We’ll just go really fast,” Alex says.

“Either they’re going to kill you or _I’m_ going to kill you.” Nicklas shuffles forward and peeks around the door. He waits.

“Let’s go.” Alex curls himself into a squat, ready to spring up. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go—”

“Go,” Nicklas says, and they spring forward, three long steps until they fall back down to a crouch and crawl.

“What, you don’t want to wait and see if they saw us?” Alex grouses pointlessly, shuffling as fast as possible.

“We’re catched or we’re not.” Nicklas stops underneath Sema’s window. “Okay, now we hope we can open it.”

Alex stands slowly. Nobody inside; he beckons Nicklas up and together they wedge Nicklas’s screwdriver into the window to pry it open. If the power was still on it’d be impossible; twelve alarms would be going by now. Alex scrambles inside, catching his foot on the sill and tumbling onto Sema’s desk head first.

He scrambles to his feet and then pauses in the centre of the room.

Nicklas follows with significantly more grace; Alex barely hears him. “What? What—oh.”

All of Sema’s contraband has been laid out on his bed. A line of Russian paperbacks, the mason jar of vodka Alex bartered from Deborah the suite attendant, a stack of loose papers covered with Sema’s cramped handwriting.

Alex swallows. “It’s a warning.”

Nicklas looks pale, his faint eyebrows drawn together. “Yes. But also, maybe this is not what they look for.”

Alex thinks he might throw up. It was fine when he was moving, when they were _doing_ something, but here in Sema’s untidy room with a tidy line of his law-breaking decorating the bed, sour sweat fills his mouth and his stomach revolts. He collapses onto Sema’s chair and lets the late rush of adrenaline hit him.

Nicklas doesn’t take his eyes away from Sema’s bed. “Was it—is it what Fedorov is doing? Is that what they look for?”

Alex looks up, startled. “What do you know about that?”

Nicklas shrugs. “Nothing. I just guess.”

Alex winces. God, if Nicklas guessed, who else knows? He rubs his forehead. The nausea’s ebbing away, at least. “I don’t know what he’s doing. He…” Alex looks up at Nicklas, his wide clear eyes, his dear familiar face. “Are you going to ignore me again?”

Nicklas flushes deep pink and looks away.

Alex laughs. “Maybe. Okay, not so bad odds.” He stretches his legs out so he’s bracketing Nicklas in between his calves. “I don’t know what Feds is doing. They have me deliver things sometimes. Feds and Vitya aren’t always approved for day passes but I almost always am. I owe them a lot, so. I do it.”

“And Semin’s not in on it.”

Alex shakes his head. “Sema… You know what he’s like. Reckless, you know? He’s like me. He’s my other part. He’d want to throw himself out of windows, or whatever weird spy stuff he’d get into his head. He’d risk himself even more than he does already. Plus, the brass is always on him. Watching, you know? Waiting for him to make a mistake. I asked Feds not to bring him in.”

“And you’re not in on it. Not really.”

Alex shrugs. “Look what happens, you know? All this shit. What’s the point?”

Nicklas narrows his eyes.

“You look like Sema.”

Nicklas huffs. “You really don’t know what they do? You have no idea?”

Alex leans back, annoyed. “All I know are the delivery spots. And when an import wants to find someone, when they want information, Feds is who you ask. That’s what I know.”

“That’s all what you want to know.”

Alex throws up his hands. “Maybe. Maybe I’m happy here. We’re fed, we sleep in a heated building, when we’re sick they give us medicine and all we have to do is play hockey. A game! You know how lucky that is? You don’t know where we were before, Nicky.” He shakes his head. “This is a good life.”

Nicklas pins him with a narrow gaze for a long, tense minute, and then he pulls his mouth to the side like _fine_ , _then_. He sits down on the edge of Sema’s bed, still within the span of Alex’s feet. One of Sema’s books tumbles to the ground. He bends to pick it up. “Maybe you teach me to read Russian,” he mutters, and then freezes as an age-spotted magazine page spills out of the book.

Alex leans closer. Heat floods through him and puddles in his groin. He had no idea Sema had this, this picture of two men together. They both have mustaches and the paper is yellow, worn thin from careful handling. The guys are fucking. One of them has his dick up the other’s ass, and they’re both slack-jawed like they can’t believe how good it feels.

Alex hears things. He’s heard the talk, all the insults guys throw around about fucking like that. He never thought it was—he never thought it was something people really did.

Nicklas yanks the picture away from Alex and folds it, places it right back where it was and closes the book. His mouth works silently. He looks oddly upset.

“You okay?”

Nicklas puts the book back on the bed, as far away as possible. “Don’t talk to him about that. When you see him—don’t tell him you saw that.” 

They sit very still for a long minute.

“Can we put some of it away?” Nicklas touches the edge of Sema’s papers. In the dim green-tinted light he looks young, and sad.

Alex frowns. “He has to know they found him out.”

“I know. Just, maybe. Maybe they don't find everything.” Nicklas bites his lip. “You know where he hides things. You do, don’t you?”

Of course Alex knows. The loose floorboard, the air vent, the slash to the mattress boxspring, the makeshift folder taped under the bed with misappropriated athletic tape. “Okay. I’ll need your screwdriver.”

Alex puts Sema’s papers back in their hiding place underneath the bed, then unscrews the air vent. He sits back on his heels. All Sema’s stuff in there is untouched. Good to know. He screws the vent back in. “I don’t know where the book was last. He’ll notice.”

Nicklas looks at Sema’s books, his rumpled blankets. “We should go.”

They shimmy out the window and over the deck, baffle Mike Green for twenty seconds and make better time back to the trainers’ room, seeing as this time Alex doesn’t have to wait fourteen years for Nicklas to get the doors open. Nicklas locks them back inside, stows everything back into his sweatshirt pocket, and then he sits on a treatment table to wait.

Alex watches Nicklas’s skinny ankles swing over the floor tiles and knows, with the same impenitent certainty he gets before taking a penalty, that he is about to do something ill-advised.

Alex stands in the valley between Nicklas’s knees, tilts his face up and kisses him. Nicklas’s mouth opens under his, wet and a little mean, scraping teeth over Alex’s chapped lips.

Alex pulls back to mouth at Nicklas’s throat. God, he’s missed this, he’s _missed_ this. “Have you ever done that? What they did in the picture?”

“Alex,” Nicklas says. He leans into Alex’s hands.

“I want to.” Alex presses their bodies together, slides his fingers up inside Nicklas’s shorts to the impossible softness of his inner thighs. “Do you want to?”

Nicklas must hear the whirring in the walls before Alex does. He pushes Alex away just before the power kicks back on and the room floods with stark fluorescent light. Alex adjusts his sweats. The cameras are back on.

* * *

Nicklas doesn’t like seeing Sanya Semin in the hallways, in the import kitchen, at the rink. He wants the Sanya Semin with the irrepressible smirk, the canny sneer, not the Sanya Semin who stashes a torn page of dog-eared pornography in his forbidden book, who fills the backs of game-play handouts with big childish handwriting and hides them under his bed.

Sanya Semin circles Fedorov on the ice, taunting him with the puck. His big smile looks brittle.

Nicklas forces himself to blink, forces the awful waterlogged sadness deep down into his body. He watches Fedorov.

Fedorov sends messages around Washington. Fedorov is who you turn to when you’ve lost someone. Management knows, or suspects. _The Russians are deep in something_. Nylander thought Nicklas would get burned by it but fuck him, fuck the whole lot of them. The fire has already started. They’ll all burn, whether they light the match or not.

Nicklas slips into Alex’s room after lights-out.

“They change the schedule.”

Alex rubs his face and sits up, squinting at Nicklas. “What?”

“We have a game against the Black next week. Los Angeles, that’s their city? They travel here, play in our rink. It’s not on the schedule anymore.”

Alex frowns. “Who are we playing instead?”

Nicklas ignores him. “A roadie to the Red. That one I remember, because the Red is in the West. I look forward to the airplane. The nineteenth of March. Now we play the Black & Blue. Why is this?”

Alex sighs and leans back against the headboard. “I don’t know, Nicky. I assume you’re going to tell me.”

Nicklas scowls. “All our Western Conference games are cancel. Our last is odd, no? The Red & White? Fedorov and Datsyuk? And ever since, there are lockdowns. Power turns off. Mike Green tells me he can’t use the telephone, none of the North Americans can. I watch the television and it’s old movies. No news. No newspapers in the ice center. Are you noticing that? Before, people sell them in hallways. Big stacks, a coin for a paper. They are all over the locker room. Now they aren’t.”

Alex shakes his head. “It’s just—I don’t know, maybe they want us to focus on the game.”

Nicklas could kill him. “This is how we focus? Sanya Semin, he’s playing so well now, is he?”

“Sema’s sulking. He always goes on droughts when he’s sulking.”

Nicklas climbs onto Alex’s bed and straddles his lap. He wants to shake him. He wants to pin him down and force him to listen. “You need to stop trusting them.”

Alex looks up at him, defiant. “I don’t.”

Nicklas snorts. “You do. You know they can hurt you, but you don’t believe it. You’re their prize. First star of every game.” Nicklas rocks on Alex’s lap, gratified by how quickly he can feel him hardening beneath him. He traces Alex’s lips, the cut on his chin, the mottled bruise under his jaw. He presses his fingertips into the bruise to see Alex’s eyelashes flutter, feel his hips rock up. “It’s not you they want, Alex. It’s your hands, your legs. Your voice in the locker room, your blood on the ice. Once your body goes they’ll throw you out.”

“George told me…” Alex looks a little shy, a little boastful. “He told me he’d help me become a Free Agent. Thirteen years, or four cups, and then he’ll help me. It’s in my contract. I’ll be—I’ll be able to help. Sema, and whoever else needs it.”

Nicklas strokes Alex’s rough cheek. His chest aches so painfully he can almost taste it. “No, Alex. None of us will last so long.”

Alex sets his jaw. “I will. I know I will.”

Nicklas kisses Alex’s temple, his high cheekbone. “They make you a king in the arena and they scream for your blood. You live, you die, you serve them just as well.”

Alex shuts his eyes.

Nicklas holds his face in both hands. “They value you. They need you. It feels like love. It isn’t.” Nicklas bends to kiss him. Alex’s mouth is pliant and yielding, wet and warm. He makes soft sounds under Nicklas’s palms.

Nicklas wrangles his clothes off, throws them in the direction of the floor. He fumbles for the oil under the bed and hauls it up, slicks his fingers and reaches back to open himself up.

Alex licks his chapped lips. “What—what are you doing?”

“You want to do like in the picture.” Nicklas drops his head forward and breathes through the pressure; it’s been a while and he’s not in the mood to go slow.

Alex makes a choked sound in the back of his throat. “You want to? You want me to?”

“I like it.” Nicklas adds a third finger.

Alex inches his hand over Nicklas’s ass to feel for the slick stretch of his hole. “I can help?”

“Next time. I’ll do you, and you’ll learn.” Nicklas pulls Alex’s arm away. “Sema has to hide that picture, Alex. Why does he hide it?”

Alex’s hands clench and unclench. He watches Nicklas’s arm move. “He… They don’t like that here. They think it’s wrong.”

Nicklas eases his fingers out, wincing. “They say it’s a sin. All fucking is a sin, unless you are married. A man and a woman. Imports can never be married, isn’t that right? So imports can never fuck.” He pours a palmful of oil and slicks Alex’s big dick. "Did you ever even touch yourself?”

Alex looks almost startled. Like a rabbit in a field. Nicklas isn’t used to thinking of Alex as prey. He’s a wolf, a bear. But even predators have soft bellies, thin skin.

Nicklas strokes him slow, savoring the heat, the hefty weight, the velvety texture. It’s a felony no one touched him. It’s a sin. “You didn’t, did you?”

“Of course I did,” Alex bluffs, poorly. His cheeks flush. He can’t look Nicklas in the eye.

“Maybe you fucked the mattress at night.” Nicklas rubs his thumb over the top of Alex’s dick, tender, careful. “But you don't slick yourself up and make yourself feel good, just because you want to. You never did.”

“Nicky,” Alex pleads, his hips jerking up. “I’m going to—If you want to—” 

Nicklas shuffles forward and lines him up against his hole. The first time he did this he thought he’d break the other guy’s dick. The spongy head, the fleshy give, he thought there was no chance it’d fit. He still feels that responsibility, an animal sympathy as he holds Alex’s dick to his hole and starts to take him inside.

Alex’s mouth drops open.

God, it burns. He’s so big, the pressure is enormous and Nicklas lets his head loll forward as he breathes through it. The bright bloom of pain goes straight to his dick, an almost humiliating swirl of sensation. 

“Nicky?” Alex’s voice is high, reedy. He reaches for Nicklas’s face. “Nicky, you okay?”

Nicklas settles. He strokes Alex’s chest, his nipples, raking his fingers through the hair. Alex’s dick throbs inside him. “What did you want? The picture, you want to do it. Did you want to fuck me? Did you want to put your dick in me and see how it feels?”

Alex trembles, reaching for Nicklas’s thighs, his face, his upper arms. “Please, Nicky. _Please_.”

“What did you want, Alex?” Nicklas raises himself up and drops back down, sinuous and slow. “Tell me. Did you want me to do it to you? Did you want me to hold your knees up and fuck you slow? It feels good. Some people like it.”

Alex shudders and thrusts up, his dick grinding against Nicklas’s prostate. “Oh, fuck,” he grunts. “Oh _fuck_.”

Nicklas catches himself on the headboard, gasping. Alex stares up at him with glassy eyes and Nicklas moves faster, his thighs burning. “Did you want— _ah_ —to do their sin, Alex? They would hurt you for this. How does it feel?”

Alex’s eyes flutter shut as Nicklas drops down. “Kiss me,” he pleads, reaching blindly for Nicklas.

Nicklas moves so fast he bumps Alex’s nose, has to reposition himself until he can find his mouth. Alex pulls him close and thrusts his hips up in devastating pulses. Nicklas grips his shoulders and loses himself to it, the wet sound of Alex’s dick moving in his ass, the shivery way need builds in his spine, Alex’s low groans and the way he holds Nicklas hard enough his skin goes white around the press of his fingers. 

Oh god, this was a mistake. Nicklas didn’t know it would feel like this. He didn’t know.

Alex slides his fingers into Nicklas’s hair and brings their foreheads together. “What do you want? Nicky, I want to do what you want.”

Nicklas can hardly think. He kisses Alex sloppy and wet. “Fuck me. Come on. Make yourself feel good.”

Alex braces his feet on the bed and fucks up into him hard. Nicklas clings to his shoulders and takes it, gasping, panting into Alex’s mouth.

Nicklas wants to see his own aching dick, his balls drawn tight as Alex fucks him, he wants to feel the place where they’re joined together, but he can’t break the pull of Alex’s bright gaze.

“Nicky,” he croaks, and Nicklas feels himself tremble, hears his own wet gasp. He digs his nails into Alex’s skin. 

Alex comes with a long, choked groan, his shocked eyes fixed on Nicklas as he trembles through it.

Nicklas grabs his cock and shakes as his orgasm rips through him with almost painful intensity. He opens his eyes slowly, looking at Alex’s chest, Nicklas’s come splashed white up to his chin.

Alex pulls him forward to kiss him. His face is wet. Nicklas’s face is wet too. He hadn’t noticed, hadn’t felt his eyes spill over. _Oh, fuck_ , he thinks, as Alex pushes sweaty hair back from his forehead with unspeakable tenderness. _Oh, shit_.

Nicklas hides his face in Alex’s neck. Alex strokes his back and murmurs sweet things in Russian. Nicklas squeezes his eyes shut as water beads up along his eyelashes. This was a huge, catastrophic mistake. God, he’s so fucking stupid. This was such a mistake, but Nicklas can’t bear to sit up, can’t bear to let Alex slip out of him, can’t bear to let the fragile universe their bodies made together recede.

“Nicky?” Alex’s rough fingers graze over the back of Nicklas’s neck.

Nicklas allows himself five seconds of black, hopeless longing, and then he eases off Alex’s softening cock and stands up, wet trickling down his inner thighs. “I need to know what’s going on. Something’s happening. You can help me or not.” His voice is hoarse. He tries not to look at Alex as he fishes his clothes off the floor. It feels disgusting, his sweatpants over his tacky skin. He deserves it.

Alex catches Nicklas’s wrist at the door.

Nicklas freezes. “I have to go.”

“You want to go.” Alex crowds Nicklas up against the door. His soft dick rubs up against Nicklas’s sweatpants, still wet with oil and come. “You make yourself go.”

Nicklas wants to look away. He can’t.

“I’ll help you.” Alex runs a thumb along Nicklas’s eyebrow. “Stop ignoring me.”

Nicklas takes a ragged breath. “I really have to go.”

Alex steps back and holds his hands up. “Love ‘em and leave ‘em,” he says in English. He smiles, rueful. Missing tooth and crooked nose, his hair standing up in sweaty tufts, the bruised expanse of his naked body eclipsing the small room.

Hot briny anguish swells up in Nicklas’s chest, burning as it rises up his throat to sting his eyes until tears spill out, huge and humiliating, to roll down his cheeks.

“ _Nicky,_ ” Alex breathes.

Nicklas scrubs at his face with both hands. He needs Alex to stop being gentle. It makes it worse, it makes it so much worse.

Alex moves slowly, tentative like approaching a stray dog. Nicklas doesn’t stop him. Alex wraps him in his arms and Nicklas sinks, lets Alex take his weight. It’s a dangerous relief. Nicklas tears himself away after a few minutes, scrubbing his face.

“I have to go.” He wipes his nose. He probably got snot all over Alex’s chest. “I—I’ll come back.”

Alex sighs. “Okay, Nicky. I’ll be here.”

Nicklas crawls into bed and cries until his nose is raw, his chest aches. Then he wipes his face and stares at the ceiling. That’s enough. That’s enough now. He got himself into this mess, and now he has to live with the consequences.

* * *

 Alex waits until the locker room erupts in raucous laughter to lean close to Feds. “Nicky told me they changed the schedule. Cancelled all our Western Conference games.”

Feds doesn’t look up from his stick. He’s wearing shorts and the clumsy tattooed shapes of Russian letters are stark on his legs. All the lines have seeped together; Alex can’t read them. “No news out of the West, either.”

“No one will give me a day pass. Do they know?”

Feds glances up. “They suspect, I think. No one’s done anything. Yet.”

Alex watches Brooks Laich squirt half his water bottle onto Tom Poti. The room swells with noise. “Games cancelled, no movement, no news. Is it just Verizon? Is it just us?”

Feds waits until Mike Green flicks his jock at Laich to reply. “I don’t know. None of us can get any information out or in.”

Brooks Laich tosses a ball of tape at Alex’s head; Alex plucks it from the air. Laich laughs. “You Russians are always whispering about something. Is that why you’re so good? All the secrets?”

“Yeah, it’s the secret of shooting the fucking puck,” Alex says, and throws the tape ball back.

Mike Green dumps a cup of water on Laich and he roars in protest and makes for Green, distracted.

“I’ll ask one of our people,” Feds murmurs. “There are a couple of Finns on the Orange.”

“Would they even know?” Alex doesn’t know the Orange treats their imports. He’s heard things about other teams. He’s heard things from _Feds_. “You said you didn’t even have a television on the Silver  & Blue. Didn’t get to look at the schedule. What if they’re like that?”

Feds shakes his head. “I don’t think so. And if I’m wrong, we’ll wait. We play the Red & Navy next. They have a lot of ours. Czechs, mostly.”

Alex chews his lip.

“Win the game.” Feds winds tape around his knees. “They don’t watch so much when we’re winning.”

They win. A squeaker at 4-3, and they take six penalties, but those two points propel them to the top of the Southeast Division.

Alex lines up for handshakes. “The Finn wasn’t in net,” he mutters to Feds.

“They have two others. Back of the line. I know them.”

Alex shakes hand after hand, looking at the interchangeable faces of North American hockey players. Missing teeth, black eyes, broken noses—he pauses on Mike Richards. _Fuck it_. The Orange’s two Finns are at the very end of the handshake line, if they have nothing for them there won’t be any other options. Alex can’t wait for another team, another day. He needs to know now. “Do you hear—”

“Don’t be an idiot Sasha,” Feds hisses in Russian. “He’s an Anglo.”

Alex waves him off. “I want to know and I _will_ ask.” He turns to Richards. “Do you hear anything, from the West?”

Richards blinks at him blankly.

Alex tightens his grip on Richards’ hand and wills him to speak the fuck up. They have to keep moving. Come on, come _on,_ Richards. “From the teams in the West?”

Richards’s eyebrows pull together in a frown. He shakes his head. No.

Alex nods slowly. “So it is not just us then.”

At the end of the line he hears the Orange’s Finnish winger ask Feds about someone, _have you heard anything about_ , but he doesn’t stick around to hear who he’s looking for, or what Feds says. He’s not sure what he feels—relief? Dread? It’s not just them. That should be good news. _Not just them_. The Navy isn’t the target. They’re safe. Well, they aren’t actively in acute danger. Well, they aren’t actively in acute danger outside of games.

Alex isn’t relieved. He showers in a daze, turning the information over in his mind, trying to parse it out.

Nicklas slips into his room after dark. “You ask Fedorov.”

Alex puts his book down. “I asked Mike Richards.”

“Who? Oh, the guy on the Orange. And?”

“They haven’t heard anything from the West either. It’s not just us.”

Nicklas scrunches his forehead up. He sits on the edge of Alex’s bed.

“You thought it was,” Alex guesses.

Nicklas nods. “It makes sense. McPhee is… soft? With his imports, but if he finds out that any of us were doing anything—it doesn't look good for him. I thought he suspects. I thought he wants to scare us a little bit, make us stop.”

Alex shakes his head. “I think he does. The lockdown, and I can’t get a day pass anymore. Maybe the stuff with the West isn’t related.”

“Something is happening in the West. At the same time, McPhee starts to close the walls around his imports.” Nicklas rubs his forehead. “The timing is convenient.”

Alex thinks about George McPhee, diminutive and unassuming in his navy suit and wire-rimmed glasses. His carefully measured voice. “McPhee used to be a fighter.”

“What?”

“When he played.” Alex has seen the videos. Tight coiled arms, half the size of the other guy, he could take anybody down. Even Brashear was impressed.

Alex’s door creaks open and Alex freezes, even though they actually have all their clothes on for once. It’s Sema, glowering, with his arms crossed tight over his chest.

“Sema? What is it?”

“You don’t tell me _fuck_ all, but you tell him? Really, Sasha? His dick’s so good?”

Alex’s stomach goes cold, guilty. He wants to protest that no, he didn’t tell Nicklas, but he did. He told him everything he knew about what Feds and Vitya were doing in Sema’s room, sitting in Sema’s desk chair surrounded by his things.

Nicklas looks at the floor, his cheeks pink.

“What do you know, Sasha?” Sema clenches his jaw. “Come on, tell me. What do you know?”

Words catch in Alex’s throat. He should tell Sema everything. He knows he should. But if he does—Sema can’t be sent back to the minors again. He knows the farm team isn’t in in the frigid northern reaches of the Yellow anymore, it’s in the Orange somewhere, but he can’t—he can’t go back there. There, or someplace else. Someplace worse. Alex won’t be the reason he goes. He won’t. He _won’t_.

“Fuck you,” Sema hisses. He slams the door on the way out.

* * *

The Navy are playing like shit.

Nicklas doesn’t blame Boudreau for screaming at them, pulling kiddie shit like bag skates and restricted privileges. He’s right. They are playing like shit.

Semin isn’t speaking to Alex, which makes the top line a real disjointed nightmare. Fedorov is clearly preoccupied with whatever’s going on with the West. All the guys seem distracted, in their own heads, playing sloppy and stupid. The imports Nicklas understands. But the North Americans?

Nylander sighs when Nicklas asks him, like he had been interrupting something important instead of the whole crate of fuck-all he’s been up to lately. “Trade deadline in a couple days,” he says shortly. “They’re nervous.”

“Shouldn’t you be playing harder? So they’ll keep you?”

Nylander shrugs. “If they want to move you you’ll move. Nothing you can do about it.”

“You don’t want to be here,” Nicklas points out, feeling a little mean. “Shouldn’t you be working harder, so they can get a trade?”

Nylander snorts. “I’m too old to be trade bait, kid.”

He wanders off. He’s scratched tonight, again. Four in a row.

The Red & Silver beats them bad that night, an absolutely dismal showing. Semin plays well. He’s about the only one who does.

Nicklas stays back to get his hips looked at, then winds his way up through Verizon after almost everyone’s gone. He likes the ice center at night. Vacant, lonely. Nicklas is almost never alone.

He heads through the common room towards import quarters and stops, distracted by a flash of movement on the roof deck. It’s Sanya Semin, sitting on one of the low tables, drinking from a water bottle and looking out over the dark city block.

Nicklas grabs an extra sweatshirt and heads out.

“It’s so cold out here,” Nicklas mutters, brushing snow off the table to sit next to Semin.

Semin laughs. His breath is flammable; there’s definitely no water in that water bottle. “I’m from a colder place than this.”

“Me too,” Nicklas grunts, pulling his hood up. “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

Semin offers him the water bottle. Nicklas takes a sip, and nearly spits it back out. It’s acrid, foul. He steels himself for the next taste, almost gagging.

“That goal on your knees tonight—it was really good.” Nicklas coughs, feeling stupid. _It was really good_. It was, though. Somebody tripped Semin along the half-wall and he managed to hold onto the puck as he fell, stick handling on his knees long enough to get a shot. Sometimes Nicklas thinks Semin only scores goals when they’re interesting.

“Yes.” Semin raises the bottle. “To a beautiful goal. It’s my birthday, you know.” He drinks, and passes it back to Nicklas.

Nicklas drinks again. His body starts to feel pleasantly numb. He hasn’t had alcohol since Sweden. “It’s your birthday? How old are you?”

Semin shrugs. “Twenty-four? Depends who you ask. My player profile says I’m twenty-four, so I guess I’m twenty-four. To my good health.” He takes the bottle from Nicklas’s fingers and drinks without wincing. It could be water.

Nicklas watches Semin’s profile, his strong jaw. “You don’t know?”

“A few extra years on this icy pit of an earth? It doesn’t make a difference.” Semin doesn’t offer Nicklas the bottle this time.

Nicklas wishes he would. He wants to stop whatever weird, sad twisting his heart is doing. “Alex thinks he needs to protect you. That’s why he won’t tell you anything.”

Semin snorts. “I know. He thinks he needs to look out for me, when he’s the fool. Giving his heart to every Swedish center who’s lonely and horny and wants to fuck.”

Nicklas’s face goes hot and red.

“You didn’t care what that would do to him. You just wanted a mouth on your dick.”

Nicklas can’t deny it. He did. He was angry and he wanted to fuck, that’s what happened. “It’s different now,” he admits, and the truth of it cracks his chest right open.

“Sure,” Semin drawls. He’s very drunk, bright-eyed and swaying a little. “You and Sasha tucked together behind closed doors, fucking and sharing secrets. How cozy. I’m so glad for you both.”

Nicklas tucks his burning face further into his sweatshirt. “He’s scared you’ll help Fedorov and people will find out, and use it. That it will give them a knife to hurt you with.”

Semin snorts. “Give them a knife? They have every knife. What Sasha doesn’t understand is that it doesn’t _matter_ what I do. If they get it in their mind to get rid of me they will. You know what happened the last time?”

Nicklas shakes his head.

“This was before Sasha was drafted. My rookie year. I came to a good team, a playoff team. The Navy was full of imports even then; you can imagine that was a relief. Mostly older guys. One or two of them were tangled up in…” Sema waves his hand vaguely, _something or other_. “I never did shit, you understand? I was scared. I wanted to find Sasha, and I thought the best way to do that was to be a good boy and hope the Navy got lucky in the lottery.”

“And they did.”

“Yes. But we’re not there yet in our story, Kolya.” Semin stretches his legs out, resettling. “The first one was the team captain, a North American. Maybe a month into the season and he’s packing his bags for the Burgundy & Blue. Then McPhee starts dumping the imports. Jaromir Jagr, and then Peter Bondra, Washington’s pride and joy. Played his whole career with the Navy. I saw him at morning skate and then I watched them load him into a van in the courtyard after lunch. He was sobbing.” 

Semin stares out at the glistening white city, ghostly under the heavy clouds. “Robert Lang. Czech guy, he led the NHL in points. Our top scorer got pulled out of the room ten minutes before a game and he never came back. Room cleaned out. Name-plate off his stall. It was like he never existed. Sergei Gonchar. I liked him; he was kind to me when I first got up. Gonchar wanted to go. He didn’t care who was left behind. He asked McPhee for a lifeboat, and then he turned up a few weeks later on another team. Not all of them did, you understand. Jagr went missing for a year.” 

The cold permeates Nicklas’s skin, seeping all the way through to his insides. “And then?” 

“Nylander after, I don’t remember where he went. He was nicer back in the day. Used to talk to us, even.” Semin’s lips quirk up at the corners and then sink down. “I think by then everyone was glad to leave. I don’t blame them. It was bleak. Nobody in the stands, losing all the time. We were icing an AHL, ECHL team. We won four of the last twenty games, and trust me, we were lucky to get that many. 

“You know when a village gets starved out? When the supply trains can’t reach them, or they can’t afford to bribe the conductor, or their greenhouse fails. You visit in July and the street is full of people, then you come back a year later and there’s nobody, husks of houses, the roofs caving in. Do you have this in Sweden, Kolya? Doesn’t matter, you have an imagination. It was like that. An abandoned village. In the end they kept Olie Kolzig and Zubie, Dainius Zubrus. He was injured.”

“And you.” 

“And me,” Semin agrees. “The North Americans call this a fire sale, by the way. Dump all your damaged goods at once so you can restock. I was young. I didn’t know what was happening. Another room was empty almost every day.” Semin spits onto the icy cement deck. “They wanted me to speak English. They wanted me to show more work ethic. I was on a sinking ship that tossed people over the side once a week. Anyway, I was next.”

Nicklas frowns, startled. “You?”

“I missed the bus to the Black and Gold, for our last game. Did someone want me to miss the bus?” Semin shrugs eloquently. “Who can say. I missed it in the end.”

Nicklas pulls his sweatshirt tighter around his body. “And you play in the minors?”

“Two years, yes. Portland Pirates. I hear the new club is not so bad. Hershey. You’re lucky. What I’m saying, Kolya, is this. It doesn’t matter who you are. Jaromir Jagr, or the lead scorer in the NHL. You’re gone if they want you gone.”

Nicklas can’t stop thinking about Semin’s abandoned towns, starved villages. They might have had that in Sweden, somewhere, but Nicklas never saw it. The government herded almost everyone up in cities and put them to work; they didn’t suffocate out in the snow. He forces himself to focus. “McPhee wants to rebuild. He tanks for a fresh start. Why? If you are a playoff team?”

“Grow from the draft,” Semin says in English. His accent is heavy, glottal; Nicklas can’t think of the last time he heard Semin say even one word in English. “All the old guys were drafted before the Revolution. Maybe they’re not reliable. Who can say.”

Nicklas thinks about the team. The stark division between the old veterans and the young guys, everybody clustered in their late thirties or early twenties, hardly anybody in between.

“McPhee asked me about Sasha before the draft. His character, you know. His soul. I told him what I thought he wanted to hear, but what really nailed his coffin was what Sasha said in the newspaper after. _I am ready to give my heart_.”

Nicklas takes a sharp, cold breath. His lungs hurt. _Alex_.

“Russians went first and second in Sasha’s draft. Nobody could believe it. Russians are risky. You could get lucky, and get Sasha. Or you could be unlucky, and get me.”

“Does Alex know?” Nicklas isn’t sure what he’s asking. About the draft? About what happened to the team? All of it, maybe. Or how it felt.

Semin looks out over the city. “Sasha knows everything about me.”

Nicklas knows that isn’t true. Alex hadn’t known what Semin hid in that book, and probably whatever else he might have squirreled away in secret places. _Sasha knows everything about me_ like Semin knows everything about Alex, something that might have been true once, before now. Before Nicklas.

Nicklas takes a breath. “Alex delivers messages for Fedorov when he can’t get permission to leave the ice center. When you came in the other night, he is telling me what Mike Richards tell him in the handshake line: the Orange hasn’t heard anything out of the Western Conference either. We want to know if we are the only team with less travel, with less news.”

Semin nods slowly. “You wanted to know if McPhee was after Seryozha and Vitya. If he was closing the walls to make them stop.”

“Yes.”

“And he isn’t.”

Nicklas pulls his hood tight around his frigid ears and watches his breath puff out in white clouds. “Not exactly. But something is going on. I think we all need to keep our heads down.”

Semin snorts. “Have you told Sasha to do that?”

Nicklas smiles. “Would he listen?”

“He should. It’s dangerous to be an import and play so well.” Semin rolls the water bottle between his palms. “To take things from North Americans. Scoring titles, wins. Everyone loves him now, but for how long?”

Nicklas shivers. They sit silently, possibly both imagining what could tip Alex over the edge. One win too many. A celebration, or a big hit. Or just the fickle sway of the public, swinging from one pole to the other.

“If you think we’re friends now, because I told you a sad story and you told me what I wanted to know, you’re wrong.” Semin drains the water bottle. “I don’t trust you, and if you bring trouble on him there will be a terrible accident. Very sad. You were only twenty.”

Nicklas doesn’t doubt for a minute that Semin would slit his throat for Alex. The thought is strangely comforting. “I’m twenty-two.”

“You think you’re twenty-two. Who’s to say?” Semin laughs, mirthless, and slides off the table. “Goodnight, Kolya.”

Nicklas watches him sway in place. He doesn’t imagine Semin will like it much if Nicklas has to help him to bed. “Goodnight.”

Semin catches himself on the table and examines Nicklas, head tilted. His tawny skin fills the horizon, light freckles and scattered moles. “Sasha never did it before you. Touched anybody. Sex. I told you that, didn’t I? He never did. Not even with me.”

Nicklas stays very still.

Semin’s face is thoughtful, almost clinical. He pushes hair away from Nicklas’s face with one big hand. His fingers linger there, and then he presses a thumb to Nicklas’s lower lip. “The little Czechs from Hershey say you burned down your whole town and that’s why Sweden sent you here. But you didn’t, did you? Nothing so big. Nothing so splashy.”

Nicklas feels his lip give way. His breath ghosts out over the pad of Semin’s thumb. His heart pounds.

Semin pinches his chin. “You’re too easy to read, Kolya,” he says, not unkindly. 

Semin is gone before Nicklas can come up with anything to say. He goes to bed alone, cocooning himself in layers of blankets to compensate for that long out in the cold. If Nicklas is too easy to read, Semin is a book glued shut, a book stapled together, a book that’s gone out of print. A book burned in the Union's revolution, never to be seen again.

* * *

Sema still isn’t speaking to Alex. Zhenya Malkin isn’t speaking to Alex either, because as it happens half the veterans of Dynamo Moscow are sulky pissy shitheads who love nothing so much as holding grudges over nonsense. And Nicklas is acting weird. Jumpy, nervous. Alex takes his frustration and turns it into a crushing win over the Black & Gold. Crosby’s not happy, running his mouth to the media about how Alex takes cheap shots. Alex doesn’t give a shit; let him gnash his big teeth. The Navy won.

“Alex!”

Alex stops in the hallway, turns back. Juice beckons him into the kitchen, pointing at something on the television. Most of the guys are scattered around on the chairs and couches, watching.

“What, Don Cherry? Juice, this is stupid. I don’t care what he says.”

Juice shakes his head. “No, seriously. It’s hilarious. He’s completely ripping you.”

Alex flops down to watch, folding his arms over his chest. He pointedly does not look over at Sema at the other end of the sofa.

“I’m going to tell you about this guy. He’s got a free ride. He runs at guys, does this stuff.” Cherry jabs his pointer finger down at his desk. “I am predicting somebody’s going to get him. And somebody’s going to get him good. There’s somebody out there, some big defenseman is going to be sitting in the weeds. As he cuts across centre ice, somebody’s going to cut him in half.”

The air goes tight.

“Wow,” Juice says, with a weak laugh. “He went harder than I thought he was going to.”

“You know Cherry,” Flash mumbles, rubbing his face. “He’s always running his mouth about Russians. I guess Alex is his flavor of the week.”

“He was fairly specific,” Feds says slowly, and Vitya nods. Both of their faces are grave, heavily lined. Two old crones.

Alex rolls his eyes, impatient. “I can take Don Cherry’s invisible defenseman. Who is this guy? He’s a hundred years old. Let him run his mouth.”

Sema is conspicuously silent on the other side of the sofa. Alex hates it, hates everybody looking at him with their unnecessary concern, hates Flash for making him spend time on Don Cherry, of all people. This whole thing is a waste of time. “I’m gonna go run,” he announces, and gets up.

“Outside?” Feds raises his eyebrows.

Alex scowls. “No, Sergei, I’m going to go prowl the corridors. Leave me alone.”

Feds raises his hands placatingly.

Alex storms for the door and nearly bowls Nicklas over. He catches him by the elbows, checking to make sure he didn’t slam into anything. “How long have you been here?”

Nicklas permits the examination, his eyebrows drawn together. “Long enough.”

Alex sighs. Everybody making a big deal out of nothing. “It’s just Don Cherry. He’s a stupid old Union relic, nobody listens to him. Don’t worry about it.”

Nicklas doesn’t say anything. He looks past Alex’s shoulder. Alex suspects he might be looking at Sema, trying to figure out if Alex is lying to him. God. He has to run before he starts slamming into walls.

“See you later,” Alex says curtly, and shoves his feet into his running shoes in his haste to escape.

The run helps, but Alex can’t calm the reckless spike of his blood. He plays hard. Big hits, big goals. Some asshole tries to run Nicklas and Alex slams him into the glass hard enough the wall shatters, slivers raining down on the ice. His penalty minutes swell and Coach shakes his head, frustrated. Alex doesn’t care. Coach can’t bench him. They’re winning.

Alex notches his fiftieth goal of the season during a game against the Black & Blue. He’s still itchy, reckless, pushing it. He drops his stick and pretends to burn his hands trying to pick it up, making faces as Mike Green skates up to him and claps his shoulder, halting him mid-celebration. Nicklas joins them next, rolling his eyes.

“You’re an idiot,” he says, very quiet and close to Alex’s face. The corner of his mouth twitches, and Alex beams. He wants to go, wants to skate, wants to score four more goals and smash some bodies on the way.

“I didn’t think you were actually gonna do it,” Greenie says, after. “Like, we talked about it in practice but actually to do it during a game. Wow.”

Alex shrugs. “Fifty goals. I was excited.”

Greenie shakes his head. “You’ve got huge balls, dude. Massive.”

“Alex.” Coach Boudreau stands in the doorway, his ruddy face grave. “A minute?”

Alex follows Coach into his office and sits down, feeling about twelve years old getting called in for playing chase in the stairwell.

“Listen, Alex, I don’t know what you guys do in Russia, but that’s not how we do things here in the Union.” Coach shifts uncomfortably in his chair, leaning on his elbows over his desk. “What were you thinking? What were you trying to do there?”

Alex taps his foot on the floor. “I was excited. Fifty goals. It was a celebration.”

“I’ve got the Tampa coach running at me after the game, calling our team a bunch of selfish import guys who are ruining the sport.” Coach shakes his head. “That’s not us. That’s not you, Alex. You’re a team guy. A good player. We love how you play, and it’s not soft. You run the body, you sacrifice for your guys. We all see that. We know that’s the kind of guy you are. But when you pull stuff like this…” Coach turns his palms up to the ceiling, questioning. “That’s not the message we’re sending.”

Alex wants to laugh. This is such a waste of time, such a colossal overreaction. Always on his ass about being too excited, being too invested in the game. That’s who he is. That’s what they love about him, until they decide he’s gone too far. “Okay, Coach,” he says instead, bouncing his knee. “Won’t happen again.”

“I’m serious, Alex. The Black & Blue guys are talking to media, saying they want to make you pay the right way.”

“They can try,” Alex says, and does not roll his eyes, although it’s a near thing. Guys have been trying to run him since he was a rookie; what makes any of them think they can catch him now? No one has yet.

Coach grimaces. “Listen, Alex, a lot of coaches don’t want to run risks on import guys. You don’t know what you’re going to get. But I know you’re not like that, eh? You’re one of ours. You play like a Union guy. You’ve got heart.”

Alex plays like Alex. He plays like _himself_. “Sure,” he says, not looking Coach in the eye.

“We play the Black & Blue again in a week. We want to show them they’re wrong about you. I want you playing your game, all right? None of this kind of nonsense. Play hard, show them you’re our guy.”

Alex escapes. Import quarters has the television tuned to fucking Don Cherry again; he grabs a protein bar and heads back to his room.

Sema leans against his door, watching Alex approach. “You should get Brashear a little something,” he says. He holds up his water bottle, shaking it so the clear liquid sloshes around.

Alex pauses outside his door. “For what?”

“For taking a knife for you in a week. You’ll owe him.”

Alex groans. “For god’s sake, not you too. It was a celebration. It’s not a big deal.”

“You know what Black & Blue means in English?” Sema takes a long drink of not-water. “It’s bruising. Getting beat.”

Alex is surrounded by idiots. “Fuck off, Sanya. As if _you_ could ever talk about being careful, for fuck’s sake.”

Sema shrugs. “Trouble never comes alone, Sasha,” he says, and disappears into his room.

Alex considers following, and decides against it. Fuck Sema. If he wants to sulk he can sulk.

Nicklas is waiting for Alex inside his room, sitting cross-legged on his bed and flipping through a Morality Booklet.

Alex strips off his sweatshirt and sweatpants and collapses onto the bed. “Not you too,” he huffs, exasperation like a lead weight on his back. If Nicklas deigned to visit to him just because he was _worried—_ Alex is going to scream.

Nicklas puts the Morality Booklet down. “Not me what?”

“If you’re going to lecture me about some dumb shit that means nothing—”

“I’m not.”

Alex peeks up at him. “You’re not?”

Nicklas shifts, avoiding his eyes. “I want to talk to you about Fedorov.”

Alex makes a face. Feds is like one of those characters in the decrepit plays Sema used to read, the ones who are always shrieking about doom. He doesn’t want to talk about Feds. “Why are you reading that? The booklet. The M.O passes them out but nobody actually looks at them except for Brooks Laich.”

Nicklas looks down at the booklet like he had forgotten it was there. “I want to know what they want to see.”

“Why?”

“It could be useful.” Nicklas pushes the Morality Booklet with his foot until it tumbles gracelessly to the floor. “Is Feds asking you to do anything?”

Alex shakes his head. “Still no day pass, what would the point be?”

“He’s not going to stop just because you can’t get a day pass.” Nicklas drums his fingers on his knee, considering. “He must know what’s going on. He must have some idea.”

“The only thing Feds tells me anymore is _be careful, be careful_.” Alex rolls his eyes. “He won’t shut up.”

Nicklas’s gaze jerks to him, an absolute focus that still makes Alex’s neck tingle. His mouth works, his jaw. His expression shifts, like intermittent clouds passing over the sun. “Do you want to fuck?” he asks, clipped.

Alex’s voice catches in his throat.

“I thought, if you want, I could fuck you.” Nicklas spreads his hands over his knees and watches his own fingers, very still. “If you want.”

“I want,” Alex says, his voice rough.

Nicklas puts Alex on his stomach. He slicks his small fingers and gives them to him one after the other. It feels strange. It feels good. Alex closes his eyes, overwhelmed. Nicklas takes him apart with patient, careful precision until Alex is so hard he’s dripping wet spots onto the blankets, grinding onto the mattress.

“Do you want to come like this?” Nicklas’s voice is serious, measured.

“You said you would fuck me.” Alex rolls over to his back and spreads his legs. He loves it when Nicklas looks at him, the stutter of his hungry eyes on Alex’s spread thighs, his balls, his dick. The way Nicklas’s skin flushes pink, the way his eyes soften.

Nicklas bites his lip. “It might hurt.”

“I trust you.”

Nicklas touches Alex’s ankle, holds on for a long, strange minute. Then he eases a pillow under Alex’s hips and checks his hole, slicks himself up. He looks so serious.

Alex fidgets, his breath going quick with anticipation. “I’m gonna give you a penalty. Delay of game.”

Nicklas pushes in a few centimeters, then he eases out. In a few more, and he withdraws again.

“Come on,” Alex pleads. He’s sweating, desperate for something he cannot name. “Come on, come on.”

Nicklas slides into him. Alex arches his head back and pulls the sheets from their moorings. Even the ceiling looks new, alien. “Nicke,” he pleads, “Nicke.”

Nicklas hitches Alex’s leg up and covers his body like a thick, blue-pale blanket. He cups Alex’s cheek, brings their foreheads together. “It’s too much?”

Alex shakes his head. His body knows how to play through injury, how to compartmentalize the strain of a muscle or the pull of broken skin. It’s not too much. Nicklas is inside him. He has to close his eyes to ride out that thought, clenching down on Nicklas inside him. He feels Nicklas’s gasp more than hears it, the swell of his ribcage pressing Alex’s skin, the hot breath on his face. Alex relaxes and lets Nicklas in, lets him sink into the cradle of Alex’s body.

“You’re so—” Nicklas shudders and squeezes his eyes shut. “Oh, god, Alex.”

“Come on,” Alex says, pulling Nicklas closer with his heels. “Come on, I want to feel it.”

Nicklas fucks him slow, agonizing strokes at precise angles. Alex can’t get him to speed up. He wants him to, he wants Nicky to fuck him hard, fuck him fast, but Nicklas maintains his steady pace until Alex is whining, pleading, trying to fuck himself back on Nicklas’s cock.

Alex is nothing but pounding blood, heaving breath, a needy tangle of nerves. “Nicky, come on, come _on_.”

Nicklas sinks his small teeth into Alex’s shoulder and spills wet inside his body. Alex holds his dick and unravels. The only thing left in the world is Nicklas’s pulsing cock inside him, Nicklas’s teeth in his skin.

After, Nicklas touches Alex’s wet hole with his narrow, gentle fingers.

“This is gonna leave a mark,” Alex says, looking at the vivid bite-mark on his shoulder.

“Good,” Nicklas says. He presses his fingers inside. Alex gasps. “Good.”

* * *

“You have my book,” Sanya Semin announces as he barges into Alex’s room. He looks sweaty, a little pale.

Nicklas rubs his face, rising slowly from the mussed covers. Alex is already awake, sat in his chair with his feet up on his desk. He’s naked, but he usually is when given the opportunity.

Alex doesn’t look up from his book. “I thought you weren’t talking to me.”

Semin raises his eyebrows at Alex, at the bed, at Nicklas. Nicklas feels his face get steadily hotter. The room stinks of sex. He’s naked under the blanket, his hair matted on one side, mouth swollen with use. Alex has a ring of teethmarks on his right shoulder, unmistakable. Semin’s eyes are dark, big pupils. He looks at Nicklas, and arousal slips down Nicklas’s spine to puddle in his groin.

Alex turns around, sighing heavily. “What do you want, Sema?”

Semin turns his gaze to Alex. “You have my book.”

“Have you ever heard of knocking on the fucking door?”

“I never knock,” Semin says, kneeling down to pry up a loose floorboard at the edge of the room. “Why should I start now?”

Alex spreads his hands. “You don’t like me barging into _your_ room!”

“You took this without asking.” Semin levers a small paperback out of the floorboard.

Alex looks incredulous. “That’s _Vitya’s_!”

“It is not, it’s mine. You don’t get everything, Sasha.” Semin’s face goes shadowy and mean, his sharp jaw clenching. “All the special exceptions, just for you.”

Alex’s heavy brows pull low over his eyes. “Get the fuck out of my room if you’re just going to be a dick.”

“No, I had another thing to say. You know these walls aren’t thick, don’t you? You know I can _hear_ you both, all night, all morning—” Semin brings a hand to his mouth. His forehead glistens. His hair looks dark, damp with sweat. He holds Alex’s bureau for support.

Nicklas frowns. “Alex, check his head.”

Alex throws Nicklas an irritated look but does it anyway, one big hand to Semin’s high forehead. “Damn. Hot.”

“I’m fine,” Semin snaps, but he sways alarmingly on the spot. Alex helps him to the chair.

“Somebody’s gotta tell Coach he’s got the flu,” Alex grumbles, pushing a bottle of water into Semin’s hand. “He’s going to be pissed. What is that, three guys now?”

Semin sips the water, making pained faces. “I’m going to be sick, I know it,” he grunts. “I hate this.” 

Alex throws on a sweatshirt and sweatpants to go and tell Boudreau the bad news, grumbling under his breath the entire time but making sure Semin has three bottles of water lined up next to him before he leaves.

“He’s a nightmare when he’s sick,” Alex tells Nicklas at the door. “You can just leave him here, if you want. I’ll get him back to his room later.”

“It’s fine.” Nicklas reaches for his sweatpants and pulls them on, excruciatingly aware of how intensely he smells of sex and how every time he moves the smell circulates.

Semin lets Nicklas help him back to his room. Nicklas tries to keep his eyes from tracking all his formerly secret hiding spots. He wonders what Semin did with his contraband, if he tried to get rid of it or if he stowed it away again. Probably the latter.

Semin groans as he gets under the covers, then stares up at Nicklas balefully. “What have you found out? What has he told you?”

Nicklas puts the bottles of water on the side table. “Nothing. Verizon is still locked down. Nothing from the West. Fedorov and Kozlov are cut off from whoever they were in contact with, I think.”

Semin heaves himself up on his elbows. “You think?”

“I haven’t heard different.”

Semin’s eyes narrow. Glassy and bloodshot as they are, he looks a little knowing. Like he has a secret he’s enjoying keeping.

Nicklas hides his hands in his sweatshirt sleeves. “Do you need anything else?”

“Sasha will get it for me.”

“We have a game tonight,” Nicklas reminds him. “The Black & Blue.”

“You’re going to be late for pregame skate.” Semin’s shoulders go tense, rising up around his ears. He rolls over and faces the wall, a miserable ball under the blankets.

Nicklas feels so wrong-footed around Sanya Semin, all the fucking time. Semin is twenty seconds away from vomiting in his own bed and Nicklas _still_ feels nervous. He escapes, stomach twisting.

The Black & Blue light up their sticks early but the Navy is ready to capitalize on the penalties, playing sharp. They notch three power-play goals in the first period: one from Alex, two from Nicklas, and they close out the game without any trouble.

Alex is triumphant in the locker room after, sweaty and boastful. “You see? It’s nothing. Just talk. If someone wants to hit me, always a pleasure. Score more goals, motherfucker.” He thumps his chest. “Nobody can stop me.”

Nicklas saw the looks Alex was getting on the ice. Mean, flinty-eyed. _Some big defenseman sitting in the weeds_. He watches Alex crow all over the locker room, swaggering around half-naked to flick water at Fedorov and pelt Kozlov with balled-up tape. 

Alex has media. It’s easy to slip out before him, to finish showering and head up to import quarters before he’s through with the scrum. Nicklas steels himself in front of Sanya Semin’s door, and knocks.

“What,” Semin demands, sullen, and Nicklas steps inside. The room smells sour with vomit and sweat.

“He’s fine. Two goals, two assists, no injuries.” Nicklas twists his fingers in the sleeves of his sweatshirt. “We won.”

Semin’s shoulders descend from his ears. He lets out a breath that turns in to a raspy cough. “Of course we won, they’re terrible,” he bluffs, avoiding Nicklas’s eyes.

Nicklas nods, jerky, and leaves him alone.

— — —

The Navy makes the playoffs. Ted Leonsis is thrilled. He doesn’t leave the team alone. He’s in the locker room after practice almost every day, shaking hands, chatting strategy. They’ll be playing the Orange, and he has a lot of thoughts about the penalty kill.

They start the series in Washington, two games at home before they go north. The Navy wins the first game, despite a spectacular second period meltdown. They lose the second, Alex frustrated, swearing, mobbed every time he sniffs the puck. The flu lingers at the edges of the locker room, sapping energy. Mike Green swears he’s fine but his skin looks vaguely green. Semin still has a nasty, lingering cough.

“Nylander wants to see you,” Fedorov tells Nicklas the day after their first playoff loss, and Nicklas nearly groans. It’s only been two games and he’s bruised all over, something torn or strained in his left leg, his right shoulder aching sharply every time he moves. Boudreau cancelled practice but they still had media. He’s exhausted. He struggles to his feet anyway.

Nylander’s in bed, sweaty with the familiar sheen of the flu.

Nicklas keeps his distance. Swedish feels strange on his tongue, rusty. He’s started dreaming in their mishmash import language, or in Russian. “Do you need water or something?”

Nylander shakes his head. “I won’t be here much longer, Bäckström.”

“What? Is the flu that bad?” None of the other guys had to go to the hospital. Maybe they want him to make a quick recovery, for playoffs. Give him fluids, or something.

“I could have been better to you. Maybe I should have been.” Nylander’s eyes are glassy, somber. “I’ve been in the league a long time, Nicklas. It’s too late now. Here. Take this.” Nylander holds out a square of white paper and a cash card.

Nicklas takes it gingerly. A name and an address. “What is this?”

“A way out.”

Nicklas’s heart turns over in his chest. His skin goes numb. “What?”

“I can’t use it. You take it. It’s no guarantee, but it’s what I have. Enough money for one person, one chance out of here.”

Nicklas stares down at the unassuming note, Nylander’s neat handwriting.

“I know I haven’t been… You don’t owe me anything. I know you don’t owe me anything.” Nylander’s face crumples, his forehead, his mouth. “I have children. From before, from when we could. I don’t know—they might still be alive. The boys could end up in the League. William and Alexander. If you’re still here in five or six years…”

Nicklas keeps looking at the note. “Uh, okay. I don’t—I don’t know why you’re acting like you’re on your deathbed, the flu isn’t that bad, but. Okay.”

“You’ll remember? William and Alexander.” Nylander clutches the blankets, leaning forward like he can force the names into Nicklas’s memory with his fingertips. “You’ll look for them?”

Nicklas runs his fingers along the sharp edges of the paper. “I’ll remember.”

Nylander collapses back, relieved. “Thank you.” 

“I… have to go,” Nicklas mumbles, and escapes into his room as quickly as he can. He doesn’t trust any hiding place in his room, not after what happened to Semin. He memorizes the name, the address, and then folds the note around the cash card and secures them both to his upper thigh with athletic tape.

He’s lucky it’s playoffs. Alex is too tired to get his clothes off. They fuck with their shirts rucked up, sloppy hand-jobs, and then fall asleep without cleaning up.

Nicklas doesn’t notice anything on the train to Philadelphia, nothing on the bus to the arena. It’s only when he sits down to start pulling on gear that he notices the conspicuous absence in the line combinations on Boudreau’s white board. He scans the room. “Where’s Nylander?”

“Scratched,” Juice says. “Poor bastard.”

“During the playoffs? Is he very sick?”

Juice shrugs. “He played like shit the last two games. Maybe he’s sick, or maybe Coach is sick of him.”

A couple guys are playing through the flu, but maybe Nylander has it worse. Maybe they just don’t want to risk it. It could be nothing. Nicklas tries to keep his attention on the game.

They lose. They lose Game Four too, a real dagger to the heart in double overtime. The Philadelphia crowds are vicious with victory. Still no Nylander. Nicklas is edgy, antsy on the train back to Washington. Dread settles in the pit of his stomach. _Room cleaned out, name-plate off his stall_. Nicklas knows what he’s going to find.

Nylander’s room is bare, mattress stripped from the bed.

Nicklas shuts himself in his room and puts his back against the door in case Alex comes looking for him. He feels the texture of Nylander’s note under his fingertips. He’s taken to hiding it when he showers, terrified it’ll be gone when he returns. Maybe this summer, maybe once things settle down, he could figure out if it’s even possible. _A way out_. He doesn’t want to end up like Nylander, seventeen years in the NHL and nothing but a sanitized bed-frame and a few names of missing persons.

The Navy teeter on the edge of elimination. They play Game Five at home, and if they lose summer could start tomorrow.

Fedorov gets knocked out of pregame two-touch early. He lingers off to the side, stretching, chatting to Kolzov. The room is noisy enough to mask their conversation. Nicke’s distracted; he’s out next.

“Have you seen Nylander?” Nicklas stretches his hamstring, trying to look casual.

Fedorov raises his eyebrows. “I didn’t get the impression you two were close.”

“Somebody told me you’re who I ask, if someone gets lost.”

Fedorov’s expression flickers and settles on something grim, tense. “Don’t look into this now. There are no good answers, and nothing good will come of it.”

Nicklas grits his teeth. “Now is when this is happening. There’s nothing on the wires. No trades, nobody on IR. No sign of him.”

“You need to let this go, Bäckström. We’re an import team. We’re under suspicion. All of us, all the way to the top. Do you understand?” Fedorov looks at him, narrow-eyed. “We have a game to win.”

The Navy claws their way back in Game Five to keep the series going. They’re tied going into the third period of Game Six in Philadelphia and the crowd howls, furious. _Go home, import. Russia sucks_. Pounding on the glass, snarling.

Alex grunts after his first shift, frustrated. “I swear to god, that defenseman, he’s straight from hell.”

“Go to the outside,” Nicklas says. He’s not playing with Alex tonight and he’s trying not to resent the changes, trying to focus on the swerving unpredictable brilliance of Sanya Semin on his right wing. “He’s not gonna let you in the middle.”

Alex doesn’t go to the outside. He goes right down the middle on a breakaway and puts it in top shelf. He skates right for Nicklas, jumping up to slam into him across the bench. Alex gets another goal on a power-play and suddenly they’re winning, up two with nine minutes left. Alex roars with joy, slams the boards, raises his stick in the air.

Mike Green snorts, clambering over the boards. “If he gets a hatty and does his hot stick again, I swear, Philly’s gonna concuss him with pop cans.”

“I didn’t have to go to the outside,” Alex announces on the bench, smug.

Nicklas fights down his smile. “I saw.”

Alex smiles very close to Nicklas’s face and then turns away to squirt water into his mouth. “Blech, stale.” He makes a face.

The clock ticks down. The Orange rallies, swarming into the Navy’s zone. Alex isn’t where he’s supposed to be. He’s lagging, skating weird.

“What the fuck,” Nicklas hisses, resenting Boudreau for taking him off the top line again. If he was out there, he could get Alex to get his fucking head together. Fedorov looks frustrated, irritated. He shouts curtly in Russian, but Alex doesn’t seem to hear.

Alex skates towards the bench for a line change and an Orange defenseman slams into him, crunching him against the glass. Alex falls to his knees and stays there, his glove groping along the wall.

Nicklas can’t breathe. He jumps to his feet, straining for Alex. Did he hit his head? Did the defenseman light up his stick? Nicklas didn’t see it flash red but he could have, he could have missed it—

Alex gets to his feet slowly, swaying, and makes it through the door to the bench.

“Move,” Nicklas snaps, and guys let him shuffle down to sit next to Alex. “Did he get you in the head? Did somebody get you in the head?”

Alex looks out at the ice, jaw slack. “No,” he says, slowly. “I just feel… I feel weird.”

Nicklas calls a trainer over. He shakes his head, checking Alex’s temperature. “Flu, probably,” he says.

“No.” Nicklas stares at the trainer. “No, it doesn’t come on fast like this. Not in twenty seconds.”

“It’s the flu, Backy. He was bound to get it sometime. Listen, we’ll get him some fluids after the game, he’ll be fine.”

Nicklas clenches his jaw. He’s so furious he can taste it. “It is not the flu,” he says tightly.

“Hey, buddy, don’t take it out on me, eh? Take it out on the Orange.” The trainer gives Alex a sports drink and pats his helmet, turning his attention to the game.

Nicklas has no idea what happens in the last seven minutes of Game Six. They win. Alex stumbles on the way back to the locker room, looks a little dazed as he gets undressed.

Nicklas kneels down in front of him to get his skates when his fingers can’t seem to manage it.

Alex smiles, dopey. “You gonna tie my skates for me, Nicke?”

“Actually, you’ll find I’m doing the opposite.” Nicklas pulls one skate off and gets to work on the other one. God, what was it? Something in his clothes, in his water? The only people around them were their people. The only people around them were the Navy, and the Navy staff. The trainer said he had the flu. Nicklas feels sick, and stupid for being surprised. He shouldn’t have let his guard down. None of them can be trusted. Nobody.

The bus ride from Wachovia to the train station should take fifteen minutes, but they’re swarmed by people as they inch out of the parking garage onto the street. Soda cans clatter against the windows. The bus rocks from unseen hands. The crowd chants about imports, Russia. Nicklas stares straight ahead and hooks his ankle around Alex’s shin. Alex doesn’t seem particularly concerned. He’s laughing, slurring nonsensical jokes.

“Flu, eh?”

Nicklas eyes Greenie. He looks so harmless, all earnest eyes and big caterpillar eyebrows. “So they say.”

“Hey, we’ll get there soon. These guys will get out of the way.” Greenie smiles encouragingly. “They’re just bad losers. Don’t listen to them.”

Nicklas tightens his grip on Alex’s shin and doesn’t answer.

Greenie shrugs, a little awkward. “Okay, bud. I’ll leave you to it.” He turns around in his seat, and Nicklas watches the back of his head. It doesn’t matter how affable Mike Green acts. Nicklas can’t trust anybody. He can’t trust any of them.

They make it to the train station after a tense hour. Alex laughs too loud, shouts jokes, forcing celebration on the short train ride back to Washington. He’s still tripping on nothing. Nicklas can’t help but look at Sanya Semin. Semin looks back, face grave.

Even if they’re fighting, even if Semin’s a slippery eel Nicklas can’t get a read on, he can trust Semin with Alex. The relief is staggering.

Nicklas pulls Alex aside on the train and he laughs, shakes his head. “It’s nothing,” he said. “I was just feeling sick, a little bit. It’s the flu, like the trainer said.”

“Were you sick earlier in the day?”

Alex shrugs. “I didn’t feel sick, but you know. These things happen. I got an IV, some fluids. I’m feeling better.”

Nicklas chews his lip.

“I’m really okay, Nicky.” Alex bumps their shoulders together. “Big win tonight. I feel good. You should feel good.” He waggles his eyebrows. “You wanna feel good?”

“We’re on a train with our entire hockey team, Alex.”

Alex makes a face. “They can look out the window.”

Nicklas is going to need to put him on a leash for children, like parents use when they take their kids skiing. “Sit here. Don’t talk to people.”

Alex whines something indistinct but Nicklas doesn’t stick around to hear it. He heads towards the toilet and pauses by Semin’s seat. Normally Alex would be sitting next to him, and Nicklas would be sitting on the other side of the table and they’d be playing cards with Flash or Juice or Fedorov. Semin’s the only one at the card table tonight. Nicklas resents his own flare of sympathy.

“Did you see it?” Nicklas keeps his voice low. The rest of the guys are rowdy, rehashing the game. It helps.

“No.”

“Has it happened before?”

“Not to him.” Semin glances up at Nicklas. “He won’t believe you.”

“I know.”

Semin exhales, annoyed. “Keep moving, Kolya. You’re going to bring trouble down on yourself.”

Nicklas continues past Semin towards the toilets. He shuts the flimsy partition door and gets his sweats down, takes Nylander’s note out. A little white square of paper. _A way out_. Nicklas had thought he wanted this. He had thought he wanted this more than anything in the world.

Slowly, methodically, Nicklas tears the note into tiny pieces. He flushes the shredded paper down the toilet.

He keeps the cash card. He’s a fool for many reasons, but he’s not stupid.

“Game Seven,” Greenie marvels at practice the next morning. “Crazy. I guess you’re used to it, eh, Feds?”

Fedorov shrugs. “We’re playing for our lives.”

“Our playoff lives,” Greenie substitutes, laughing.

Fedorov doesn’t smile. “Yes. Our playoff lives.”

Fedorov looks old. Tired, slow. His ankle’s been a problem this season. Maybe his experience can’t compensate for an aging body, a conniving mind. Drafted before the Revolution, like Semin said of his old veterans.

Alex is aggressively fine, miraculously recovered from the flu. Skating too hard, spending his energy early and conserving absolutely nothing, like always. Beneath the carapace of pads Alex’s skin is mottled with deep black-purple bruises. He throws his body around like pain is something that happens to other people. _Some big defenseman sitting in the weeds_. But Alex won’t wait for Don Cherry’s big defenseman to stalk him, to launch his slow attack. Alex never waits for anything. Alex will throw himself bodily into the weeds beaming, joyous and looking for trouble, mindless of the knife nestled in the sharp frozen grass.

Juice hits the boards, swearing. “Fucking, fuck! These skates are garbage!”

A glint of silver hides near the wall, half-submerged in snow. Nicklas skates over to help, shouldering Juice’s arm up around his shoulders. His skate blade broke clean off.

“Thanks, Backy,” Juice huffs. “These skates are shit.”

“Sucks,” Nicklas says, as he tucks the skate blade up inside his shorts with his spare hand. He tows Juice to the boards.

Nicklas hides the blade in his bedroom ceiling, stowing it carefully along the metal grating so scanners won’t catch it.

* * *

They lose.

They force a sixth game, and then they force a seventh, and then the Navy loses the series in overtime to a penalty call and that’s it. They’re out.

Black dread swallows Alex whole. It takes a few weeks before he starts to feel okay, and by then he realizes that none of the North Americans have left for the summer.

“All summer travel has been cancelled,” Nicklas reports, when he asks. “No phone calls either, according to Greenie.”

Alex collapses on the couch next to him and watches Zhenya Malkin and the Black & Gold take out the Orange with ruthless precision. Zhenya dekes and Alex turns to make a joke to Sema—Sema’s not talking to him. Right. Sema’s still in his snit. Alex slouches into the couch and forces his feet under Nicklas’s thigh. Nicklas pretends like he doesn’t notice, but Alex can see the corner of his mouth twitch.

“They’ll win the whole thing,” Sema says, voice cold. He’s curled up across the room like a resentful cat.

Alex perks up, eager to get a non-hostile interaction going. “You think they’re so good? Maybe in the East. But not against the West.”

“Who’s coming out of the West? The Green, or the Red & White. Import teams. You think the Union would ever let them win?”

Alex groans. “Jesus, Sema, not another conspiracy theory. You win when you’re the better team. No excuses. Are you gonna whine about that penalty call too?”

“The refs put their whistles away early in the second period, and only took them out during overtime.” Sema shrugs with one shoulder, his smile mocking. “Maybe it never mattered what we did. Maybe we were never going to win the series.”

Alex wants to fall down and let the earth consume him out of sheer exasperation. “For the love of—we got beat, Sema. We took a penalty, we didn’t kill the penalty. That’s on us. That’s our own fault. You don’t have to make it a whole political production.”

“You wait. The Black & Gold will win. Good Union boys, triumphing over weak Europeans.” Sema stares darkly at the television. “I suppose Zhenya can be their not-so-little mascot.”

“And Sergei Gonchar,” Nicklas adds, with an odd look at Sema. “He’s also on the Black & Gold.”

“Fuck Sergei Gonchar,” Sema spits. He glares at the television for another minute, jaw working, and then stalks out of the room. The slam of his bedroom door echos through import quarters.

Alex makes a face. “He’s so _moody_. Why does he have to make such a big deal about everything?”

Nicklas makes a noncommittal sound. He puts one hand on Alex’s ankle, a light touch that Alex feels in his whole body.

Sema’s right. The Black & Gold win the Stanley Cup. It’s another one of his weird little forecasts, the way he can pluck the future out of thin air when the mood hits him. Normally he’d be gloating about it. Instead Sema just huffs a little and slams his way around the kitchen with pointed force, making a sandwich in a sulky sort of way.

The broadcast pans over the downcast faces of the Red & White and reminds everyone that Europeans just don’t have the same team spirit and it just goes to show, doesn’t it, that you need good North American Union leadership and strong moral values to win.

Ted Leonsis meets Alex outside of the gym a few days later, after the strange suspended reality of the offseason has really sunk in and made Alex restless and eager to do _something_ , even if it’s just running sprints and lifting heavy shit.

“A strong work ethic,” Ted says, patting Alex’s arm. “Really committing yourself. That’s what we love to see.”

“Thanks,” Alex says, wiping his brow.

“You know, that’s what sets you guys apart. Now, I’m not a fan of the Black & Gold, to say the least, but Evgeni Malkin is one of those Russians who’s like you, you know. Good values. That’s important. That’s what helps you guys succeed.” Ted looks off into space, troubled.

“Uh, sure,” Alex says. The only thing he can think of is the time Zhenya mooned the entire senior team from the second story window when they were fourteen.

“Some players, though. I gotta say this, Alex. You understand I don’t mean you. You’re different. You’re a special kid.” Ted shakes his head, looking upset. “Some players, I put my trust in them. I invest in them. I give them a second chance. And they spit in my face.”

Alex sucks in a breath.

“I know. It’s upsetting. You think you know a guy. You think you know his morals, his heart. And he turns around and betrays you. I don’t understand it, Alex. I have been so generous with my imports. I believe in you. I support you. I want you to have the best facility, the best trainers, the best coaches. And in return, I want you to be the best you can be.”

Alex desperately wants to sprint through Verizon to import quarters, and leave Ted Leonsis in the dust. He can’t. He tries to look sympathetic. He tries not to look as panicked as he feels.

“It hurts to cut a player. It really hurts to say, you know, this guy, he’s not going to work out. But when he betrays you? When he takes your trust and throws it in the garbage?” Ted clicks his tongue. “I know it’s not all your fault. You guys don’t get taught the same fundamental moral values. It’s a shame, it really is. But I don’t understand how they could hurt me like that. It makes me look bad, it makes the Navy look bad. It’s a real shame for George. He believes in letting you guys have a good amount of freedom, let you run around a little, experience the best the city has to offer you. Like how you love Washington, Alex, that’s a wonderful thing. That means a lot to our fans. You’ll walk around, enjoy the architecture, you’ll give autographs, you’ll say hello to the kids. The problem comes when imports abuse the privileges we give them.”

Alex swallows hard. “Yeah, that’s no good. Really, uh, a betrayal.”

“It hurts everyone around them. The League wanted us to change our whole philosophy, to cut all of your special privileges. George had to work very hard to explain that a few bad apples don’t ruin the whole bushel. It really is sad, Alex. It really erodes at my trust.”

“Yeah,” Alex says weakly. “Yeah, it would do that.”

“It’s a real shame. A real shame.” Ted stares into the middle distance, troubled. “Well, I won’t keep you. I’m glad to see you working on yourself. Investing in yourself, just like we’ve invested in you.”

Alex glances at the stairwell. He needs to go and check, but first—“So—uh, I don’t want to ask at a bad time, but if George is, you know, getting our privileges back, could I get a day pass? Do some runs outside, that sort of thing?”

Ted frowns. “You are asking at a very bad time, Alex. No, no day pass.”

Alex nearly steps back. He’s never seen Ted look at him like that, no jovial warmth in his face. None of the paternal kindliness.

“You guys need to earn your privileges back. Show me a real commitment to the team, to doing things the right way, to improving your moral character, and we’ll see about the day passes.”

Ted leaves Alex standing in the hallway. Alex stays put for a minute, wrong-footed, and then he sprints for import quarters.

Nicklas stands in the middle of the hallway holding a mug in two hands. His face is grave, his shoulders are tense: he’s miraculously solid, a rumpled vision in an oversized sweatshirt. Alex wants to hold onto him with both hands and never let go.

Alex runs over to join him. “What? Who is it?”

Nicklas nods at the open doors. Two empty rooms, all possessions stripped and the hateful smell of antiseptic wafting from the furniture. It takes Alex a minute, even though they’ve had those rooms for years. Feds and Vitya.

Alex’s stomach turns over, swirling with sour fear. “Sema? Is Sema—”

“He’s okay,” Nicklas says quickly, reaching out to hold his elbow. “He’s fine. Angry, upset, but fine.”

Alex leans against the wall and lets relief crash through him. Guilt rises up almost immediately. Sema might be safe, but Feds and Vitya are decidedly not. Alex slides down the wall until he hits the floor. “Traded?”

Nicklas shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

Alex slumps. A trade would be a stretch, admittedly. Maybe—they’re both so experienced, Feds has three Stanley Cups, for fuck’s sake, maybe somebody wants to take them on to train their imports. Skills coach. Or they could go to the minor leagues. They’re not _so_ battered. Both of them could play another two, three years, easy.

Nicklas sits down next to him. His body is big and warm. Alex puts his head on Nicklas’s sloped shoulder. Fuck it. Feds isn’t here to tell him _be careful_ anymore. And who was he to say that? He was the one who got caught. If he hadn’t, Ted wouldn’t have felt so betrayed. Maybe he would have signed Feds for another year, or let him stick around to work with the rookies.

Alex squeezes his eyes shut. He’s so angry. How dare they just— _leave_? How could they leave him here?

Nicklas strokes his hair. Alex breathes in the smell of his skin and lives through it, like he always does. Alex sprints through life with loss nipping at his heels, stubborn as a hungry dog. He’s survived it before and he’ll survive it again. He doesn’t know why it always hurts like this. It hurts like this every time.

* * *

Nicklas finds the papers.

He’s fumbling around under the bed for the oil but he finds the papers instead, taped to the side of the bedside table.

Alex peels athletic tape carefully from the paper. The words at the top are in Cyrillic; big forceful marks of the pen.

“What does it say?”

Alex frowns down at the paper. “It says _Sasha—keep the flame_.”

The rest of the papers are filled with neat dense columns of numbers. Coordinates, maybe. Or addresses. Phone numbers? Nicklas doesn’t know what use phone numbers would be; none of them have a phone and even if they did, it’d be bugged. The letters are Russian; Nicklas can’t read them.

Alex flips through the papers, frowning. “We need to get rid of this.”

Nicklas yanks the papers from Alex’s fingers. “What are you talking about?”

Alex’s face is dark, angry. “It’ll get you killed. It’ll get somebody killed. Somebody else.”

“You don’t know they’re dead,” Nicklas says, feeling idiotic even as he makes the argument.

Alex shoots him a sullen look.

“Even if they are. Especially if they are, Alex—we can’t turn our backs on this. You don’t want them to die for nothing.”

“They _did_ die for nothing.” Alex’s eyes swim with angry tears. “Those fuckers. Nothing, nothing, we’re still here and they’re gone.”

Nicklas wants to fold Alex into his body. He wants to take the skate blade from his ceiling and slit the throats of anyone who ever let Alex down. “You said you owed him. Fedorov. You said you owed him something. What did you owe him, Alex?”

Alex wipes his face. He looks at the wall, jaw working. “Sema went missing my first year in the NHL. Seryozha found him, let me know he was okay. Finding Sema was the last thing he did for a while. I think he got caught; he was traded to the Silver & Blue. It’s really strict there.”

“When you lose people, and you’re an import, you ask Fedorov. Someone told me that.”

“So what? He finds people, he’s got contacts, probably he does other mysterious plotting, so what? He’s dead now. He doesn’t do _shit_ anymore.”

Nicklas holds the papers tight. “I think we can do this, Alex. At least we can keep the papers, just in case. We can hide them better than he did.”

Alex shakes his head. “Fuck,” he mutters, tense and shaking. “ _Fuck_.” He slams his hand onto the pillow, a muffled thud. He climbs off the bed and paces the small room. “Nicky, I don’t want to—I think you’ll get hurt. You can’t get hurt. Okay? You can’t get hurt. You promise me.”

Nicklas takes a sharp breath. He has to look at the ceiling, or he’s going to cry. “I can’t promise.”

“You promise, or I’ll burn the papers.”

Nicklas holds the papers in his lap. There’s no chance of that.

“You promise me.” Alex’s voice cracks. “Promise me, Nicky.”

Nicklas sighs. “Alex, if you don’t want to do this, you don’t have to. I can do it by myself.”

Alex draws himself up to his full height. “Like hell you will.”

Nicklas wants to laugh. _Alex_. “Yes. By myself, if you don’t want to.” 

“Not without me. Not without me there, too.” Alex puts his hands on his hips. “You don’t want to promise? Fine. I’ll promise for you. You’re not getting hurt by this. You won’t. I’m gonna make sure, okay? Now give me the papers.”

Nicklas eyes him suspiciously.

“What am I going to do, throw them out the window? Come on, Nicky. I know where to hide them.”

Nicklas raises his eyebrows.

“I saw where they didn’t find Sema’s stuff, come on, hand them over.”

The door creaks open. Sanya Semin, of course, cold with fury. “Didn’t find Sema’s stuff where?”

Alex puts his hands over his face and groans. “Fuck’s sake, Sema. Knock.”

“You never used to care about knocking. But whatever.” Semin crosses his arms over his chest. “Where are the papers?”

Nicklas subtly pulls a pillow into his lap. The papers are slippery beneath the fabric.

Alex goes very still. “What do you know?”

“That’s usually my line.” Semin smirks, humorless. “You’ve been a little preoccupied this season, Sasha. Lots of time in your bedroom. I had to fill my hours somehow.”

Alex face darkens. “Seryozha promised me.”

“You weren’t doing anything for him after they closed the doors. The pact was invalid.”

“So, what, you were working for him?”

“I helped. You might have noticed if you weren’t locked in your fuck palace all the time. The papers, Sasha.”

“Why should I give you the papers? You can’t even hide your own shit effectively,” Alex spits, hurt and angry. “I know they found pretty much everything, Sanya. They put it all over your bed. Nice and neat.”

Color drains from Semin’s cheeks. “How do you know about that?”

“I saw it, you asshole! Nicky saw it too, anyone could have fucking seen it, what did you expect? God, what if you’d lent somebody your stupid book and they saw that picture in there? What if the M.O found it?”

Semin’s voice scrapes out of his throat. “What the fuck, Sasha.”

“Alex,” Nicklas says quietly.

Alex doesn’t look at him. He’s trembling, furious. “How long have you had that, by the way? It was a really shitty hiding place; I’m surprised I didn’t see it before now. It fell out of the book when Nicky picked it up.”

“That was absolutely none of your fucking business.” Sema’s eyes are wide, frantic. “You took him? You let _him_ see my things?”

“He has a _name_!” Alex throws his hands up. “Not that you would notice half the time. You want me to keep secrets for you but you don’t tell me—you don’t tell me anything. You wouldn’t piss on me if I was on fire.”

“Oh, _fuck_ you,” Sema snaps. “You melodramatic fuck. What is _wrong_ with you? Do you trust anybody who pays attention to you? Of course you do. Of _course_ you do, Sasha, you trusting fool.”

“It’s _always_ about you. Always talking about how I’m naive, like I haven’t seen the world, Jesus, Sanya, I know you made it out of Krasnoyarsk with blood underneath your fingernails but it wasn’t easy in Moscow, either! But no, it’s about _you_. You come back from the Yellow and I carried you around import quarters for months until your feet healed and did you ever, ever _once_ say thank you? No, you were a fucking nightmare the whole time.”

“Oh I am _so sorry_ my injury inconvenienced you,” Sema spits. “Give me the goddamn papers, Sasha. You didn’t care about their work and I do, so it should be mine. I should have it.”

Alex sputters. “Care? You _care_? It’s just a tool to you. You like to say _I know this and you don’t_. You like risking yourself, fuck the consequences. You like using this to screw me, to put one over on me, _that’s_ what you like. Seryozha cared about the people around him, he believed in what he was fighting for—you don’t believe in anyone or anything.”

Sema stalks towards him like a big cat. “And you’re so pure? You want enough food and a comfortable bed and now, apparently, you want a fuck. Give you that and an endless font of attention and you’ll happily endure the pillage of Moscow. You think you’re some warrior when you’re really Ted Leonsis’s prize game dog.”

Alex’s nostrils flare. “Seryozha didn’t give you the papers for a reason. Did you fuck up, Sanya? Are you what got him caught? I bet you were. I bet you fucked up, and that’s why they’re dead.”

Sema balls up his fists. He’s shaking. “Oh, _fuck_ you, Sasha.”

“You didn’t care about them, and you don’t care about me. I just make your life easier because when I’m around people don’t pay attention to you.”

Sema hits Alex clean in the face. Alex isn’t expecting it. He rears back, and by the time he realizes what’s happened Sema has stormed out the door, slamming it in his wake.

“Fuck,” Alex swears, knocking the contents of his desk to the floor. “Fuck!”

Nicklas puts the papers under the pillow and leaves. Sema isn’t in the corridor. He doesn’t check Sema’s room; Nicklas is definitely not someone he wants to see right now. He fishes an icepack out of the freezer and returns to find Alex fuming, sitting on the floor in the mess of his room. He’s knocked more stuff down, although less than Nicklas had expected.

“Here,” Nicklas says, and hands him the icepack. “Where do I hide the papers?”

Alex points towards the air vent.

“And you think it’s safe?”

“Only person who does that trick is Sanya,” Alex grunts, holding the icepack to his jaw.

Nicklas unscrews the vent and tapes the papers inside, out of sight.

* * *

Sema knows all the nooks and crannies of Verizon Center. He has half a dozen convoluted hiding places on every floor. He was like that in Moscow, too, learning the secrets of Dynamo’s crumbling dormitories after barely a month. Alex isn’t surprised Sema’s able to avoid him so effectively.

He’s not surprised, but it feels strange in a way that it didn’t even when Sema wasn’t talking to him. Sema was pissed at him, but he was always close. Practice, travel, games—Alex could always feel him across the room like he was an extension of Alex’s arm, or his hockey stick. Now he’s just—gone. A phantom limb. Alex reaches for him and finds nothing, dead air.

Sema’s never in the kitchen. He doesn’t come to meals, either, so Alex isn’t sure when he eats. Coming out in the middle of the night, maybe, to filch peanut butter from the cupboards and squirrel it back to his room. His bedroom door stays hermetically sealed during the day. More troubling, he’s missing from workouts.

“Sema’s gonna get in trouble if he doesn’t come to conditioning,” Alex mutters, joining Mike Green by the free weights.

“Yeah, bud, I was going to ask you about that,” Greenie says, wiping sweat from his face. “Where is he? I haven’t seen him in, like, a week.”

Cold fear rises in Alex’s stomach. He makes his way around the weight room, casually asking everyone. All the North Americans, all the imports. No one’s seen Sema.

Alex wants to throw a medicine ball out the glass window and scream until his lungs give out. “When was the last time? The last time you saw him?”

Juice’s forehead bunches up. “Around when Feds and Vitya went. But he wasn’t—I don’t think they would have taken Sema with them. I heard Feds and Vitya got assigned to the minors, or something like that. They wouldn’t send Sema down. He’s too good.” 

A week and a half. That was when they fought, that was when Alex told his oldest friend in the world that he was an asshole who didn’t care about anyone. Shit.

Sema’s bedroom door is locked. Alex didn’t know their doors _could_ lock. He races out onto the roof deck to peer in through the window; the blinds are down. He can’t see anything.

“It’s not cleaned out,” Nicke says, tentative. “That’s a good sign.”

Alex shakes his head, mute. He doesn’t want to talk about it. He wants to lie on top of Nicke and make sure nobody takes him, too.

Nicke lets him, which would be worrying if Alex wasn’t so grateful. He sleeps sprawled on top of Nicke’s body, face tucked into the hot fragrant skin of his throat, and hates letting him up even to go piss or get a glass of water.

Fear infects every breath Alex takes, seeps into every sleepless night, every monotonous day. It steals the words from his throat one minute and makes him furious and restless the next. He pesters Brashear to teach him to fight one afternoon, when anxiety crawls over his skin like a hoard of fleas.

“Come on,” Alex pleads. “Just show me what to do if some guy grabs me.”

“That’s not your job, Alex. You could hurt yourself, hurt your hands.”

“You know I’m gonna get someone else to do it if you don’t,” Alex argues.

Brash sighs. “Basics. We’ll do the basics.”

Alex pumps his fist in the air. Brash teaches him how to throw a guy, how to keep his balance, how to grab a jersey. He goes to find him the next day for more lessons, and he’s gone. Traded to the Red & Blue, his room cleaned out and door swinging wide, vacant.

Sema’s door stays shut.

Alex runs the outskirts of Verizon. He visits the front office every day but George McPhee is always unavailable, always in a meeting, always on a call. Ted is nowhere to be seen, and Alex doesn’t want a repeat of the way he looked at him at the end of their last conversation.

Nicklas checks the wires twice, three times a day. He pays attention to the League news and fishes newspapers out of trash bins. He doesn’t find anything.

Alex tries not to think of everyone he’s lost. There’s no point in it. But Sema—if he’s lost _Sema_ —

Nicklas cups the back of Alex’s head like he’s a child, like his skull is fragile. He holds on.

* * *

Nicklas does his best to keep up with Alex’s moods, and when he can’t, he makes himself scarce. Sometimes Alex’s self-recrimination leaks out of him and he goes looking for an argument; Nicklas isn’t interested. Alex doesn’t want a fair fight right now. He wants to be hit in the face. It’s a crucial difference, and Nicklas is not about to indulge him.

Sanya Semin remains missing. It’s been two weeks.

Nicklas is in his own bed alone when the door creaks. He resurfaces slow, swimming to consciousness as Alex crawls into his bed. Pleasure spreads to the tips of his toes and he smiles without opening his eyes, pulling Alex’s broad back until they lie flush together beneath the blankets.

“You never come in here,” he mumbles, mapping Alex’s body by touch. The immense spread of his shoulders, the ropes of his muscles, his thick hair and hot scalp.

Alex speaks into the crook of Nicklas’s neck, a muffled rumble.

“I can’t hear you.”

Alex lifts his head far enough to capture Nicklas’s mouth, sour night breath and all. Wind and rain beat against Nicklas’s window, Washington battered by a summer storm. Damp chill suffocates Verizon, but Alex is warm.

Nicklas pulls back to breathe. “What do you want?”

Alex’s eyes are wide, vulnerable. He chews his lower lip. “I want to do what you want.”

“I want to do what you—god, this could go on forever.” Nicklas exhales an almost laugh. Affection pulls him under like a sinkhole. Alex’s face softens, mirroring him. “I want you to fuck me. Do you want to fuck me?”

Alex inhales, sharp.

“Good.” Nicklas sits up to go through his bedside table. The oil is in Alex’s room, but he has extra.

“Just in case?” 

Nicklas lies back and gets a leg up, reaches down to work a finger into himself. “I use it on myself.”

Alex’s eyes go hot, hungry. “Can I…”

Nicklas slides his finger out and spreads his legs wider. “Yes.”

Alex stretches him with painstaking care, sucking the pink head of his cock and working his fingers in slow steady pulses. He looks better with every gasp he wrings from Nicklas’s body. Steadier, less afraid. He even smiles when Nicklas whines a little and kicks him in the thigh, impatient.

“Come on,” Nicklas says, when he’s ready. He’s sweating, breathing hard. “That’s enough, Alex.” 

Alex sinks into him and Nicklas tilts his head back and lets the sweet ache of pleasure consume him, lets himself gasp and moan.

“Alex,” Nicklas whispers, and his voice comes out choked.

Alex holds Nicklas’s face, strokes his cheekbones, drops kisses on his slack mouth. “Sasha. Call me Sasha.”

“Sasha,” Nicklas says, and Alex lets out a broken sound. “Harder. Come on.”

Alex fucks him hard, crushing Nicklas underneath his weight. Nicklas hooks his legs around Alex’s back and holds on. It’s impossibly, deliriously good: the dizzying pressure, Alex’s ragged breathing, the wet sound of their bodies together. Alex’s eyes are wide, bright blue. Nicklas feels so much he thinks he might die from it. How can his body possibly hold it all? The morass of longing, or the relentless drip of fear that coalesces into something sharp and dangerous, a deadly icicle growing from the eaves.

After, Alex shudders and collapses, still draped over Nicklas. “If sex is like this no wonder the Union doesn’t want us doing it,” he pants, wiping sweat onto the pillowcase. “I think I’m dead.”

Nicklas’s heart aches in his chest. He fumbles Alex’s face in his hands. “It’s not like this.” His voice cracks, thready and unfamiliar. “It’s never like this.”

Alex’s breath hitches. His eyes are bright stars.

“It’s never like this for me.” Nicklas presses his forehead to Alex’s broad brow. He would kill for him, for his broken-toothed joy, for his trusting heart.

Alex gathers Nicklas in his arms and holds him tight. Nicklas drinks in the sweaty smell of him, his animal musk. He thought love would be softer, sweeter. Not this huge and violent ache. Not this wildfire simmering beneath his skin. 

* * *

Alex can’t sleep. He lies awake and keeps his palm spread on Nicke’s chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath. Sema could be anywhere. Sema could be nowhere at all.

Nicke’s ribs expand out, out, and then collapse in a noisy rush. “You’re not sleep,” he mumbles.

Alex circles Nicke’s small nipple with his fingertip. So strange. He doesn’t know why bodies have them, and he doesn’t know why it turns him on so much to feel the nub of Nicke’s nipple go tight and hard. “You know the marks Feds and Vitya had? The tattoos?”

Nicke squints at him. “Yes? Not just them.”

Alex nods. “Some of the other guys too, but Feds and Vitya have the most. Had the most. They gave them to each other, I think. Or to themselves. I saw them do it.”

“My brother did that sometimes. Give a tattoo. At a party.” Nicke’s eyes wander towards the window.

Alex hasn’t heard Nicke talk about a brother before, or his family. “What’s his name?”

“Kristoffer.”

“I have two brothers. Or I had.” Alex picks up Nicke’s hand and examines it, his neat nails, his callouses. “Can you do it? Tattoo?”

Nicke frowns at him, suspicious. “Not good.”

“I don’t care if it’s good. You can do it?”

“Will you be punished?”

Once, Alex thought he would never be punished. Ted and George brought him to Washington and did everything they could to make him comfortable, to keep him happy. “They don’t like it, but what are they going to do? Come on, Nicke. You can do it. You can do anything.”

Nicke can’t quite tamp down his smile. “Don’t be stupid.”

Alex has a tattoo, the lines of his barcode faded now, and he would watch Feds and Vitya and the other imports jab more ink into their skin with something like fascination, but never envy. Now he needs Nicke to do it. He needs to see a mark on his body that he asked for.

“Come on,” he pleads, and Nicke relents. Alex sees it in his face, in the way he shrugs sleep off like an unwanted shirt and examines him with clear eyes.

“I won’t be able to do much. What do you want?”

Alex wants a list of names. Alex wants his mother’s face, a hazy memory of sharp eyes and stern mouth. Alex wants a huge fuck-off Russian eagle. Alex wants to never forget who he’s lost. “An eagle,” he decides. “You can do an eagle? A Russian eagle, it’s got like, two heads and these wings—”

“I can do a bird,” Nicke says. “Maybe. You want a bird?”

Alex nods. He wants a bird. He wants to look down at his skin and see the change he feels in his heart. He kicks the blankets down and lies naked on Nicke’s bed, waiting.

Nicke sits up. “Okay. I need to find things.” He digs in his desk for a pencil, a small repair kit that has a needle, some string. His face is small and solemn as he ties the needle to the end of the pencil, as he hunts through his desk for a suspiciously expensive-looking pen and cracks it open. Alex watches, interested. Nicke has all sorts of things he shouldn’t have, and he’s hidden it in all sorts of strange places. Nicke unearths a book of matches from underneath his curtain rod and sterilizes the needle. Alex watches the flame flicker and thinks of Sema. He would like this, all the contraband and the matches. He would like bragging that he had been right about Nicke all along, _violence and fire hazards._

Nicke draws a bird on his ribs. He wasn’t lying; the drawing is crude, the shape of a distant bird in flight. “I’m not good. You’re sure?”

“Do it,” Alex says, and watches as Nicke begins to jab his skin with the needle, with the ink. It hurts in a dull, distant sort of way, pain buzzing deliciously through him until he’s hard, breathing shallow. It’s the pain and the clear pressure of Nicke’s absolute attention, as the dots begin to coalesce over his ribs. Nicke’s careful marks will be on his body forever. He’ll be buried with this, he’ll die with this on his skin.

It’s hard not to move, to thrust, hard to make himself lie still under the steady relentless pressure of the needle and feel his body react.

Nicke takes a break, flushed all over his cheeks and down his neck. He dabs at Alex’s side, wiping blood off with a tissue. He keeps glancing at Alex’s dick.

“I’m distracting you,” Alex says, delighted.

“No,” Nicke lies.

Alex beams and puts a hand on his cock, moves his foreskin up and down. “Feels good,” he says. “Hurts good.”

Nicke licks his lips.

Alex groans and grips the base of his dick.

“Be patient,” Nicke tells him, a cool hand on his chest. “Let me finish.”

Nicke finishes. Alex’s Russian eagle is a shallow black silhouette on his side, blurry with imprecise edges. It’s perfect. Nicke covers it with vaseline and tapes a bandage down with medical tape.

“Thank you.” Alex touches the bandage gently. He feels brand new.

Nicke puts his mouth on Alex and sucks him slow. Alex touches his hair and remembers the first time, when Nicklas snuck into his room and altered his whole life. He’s so grateful he can hardly speak. He tries to show Nicke with his hands, with his mouth. It’s not enough. It’s never enough.

Alex wakes with a start in the early morning. Nicke is still asleep, golden head buried in his pillow.

Somebody bangs on the door. Belatedly, Alex realizes that’s probably how he woke up.

“What,” he shouts, and then flinches when he registers where he is. Nicke’s room.

“Come out here, asshole,” Juice yells back, and Alex relaxes. If it’s just Juice, if he’s swearing like that, it’s not anything that’ll get them in trouble.

He struggles out of bed and into his sweatpants, not bothering with a shirt. It’s June, not that cold. He gets a little thrill when he moves and the new tattoo stings. Nicke is reluctant to wake, groggy, surfacing with sweet, slow blinks. His small mouth purses, annoyed. “What go on,” he croaks, throwing an elbow over his eyes.

Alex loves looking at him, the pillow creases in his cheeks, the healing spot on his chin. The grumpy way he yawns, like he thinks the whole enterprise is a waste of time and he resents having to go through with it. “We’re summoned.” He gently detangles Nicke’s mussed curls with his fingers. “Wake up, you have to come with me.”

“No I don’t,” Nicke mutters, but he struggles to sit anyway, rubbing his eyes.

Alex hands him a pair of sweatpants and, feeling hot with satisfaction, his own sweatshirt. Nicklas puts it on without complaint. He touches Alex’s number on his chest and quirks his eyebrows up, amused. Alex can’t hide his smug pleasure at the sight. Nicklas doesn’t change.

No one is in the hallway. Excited chatter emanates from the kitchen, and Alex follows the sound.

“Hey,” Alex calls to the knot of players clustered around the couches. “What is this, a surprise party?”

Juice backs up, beaming, and Alex sees straight to the heart of the huddle: it’s Sema. Sema, lanky and familiar. Sema, floppy hair falling into his eyes, all four limbs and ten fingers accounted for. He’s wearing socks, so Alex can’t check for frostbite, but he’s standing. He’s standing in the room like he never left.

“Oh, shit,” Alex hears himself say, and he stumbles forward to wrap Sema up in his arms. Relief hits like a shot of morphine after a broken limb. He’s woozy with it, delirious.

“Where were you?” Nicke’s voice sounds distant, a faraway echo. Alex reaches back for him, holds tight when he offers his hand.

Sema’s chest rumbles as he speaks. “Special training.” 

Alex doesn’t have to look him in the face. He can hear it in Sema’s voice, in his heartbeat. He’s lying.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in what I changed and what I did not change you can learn all about it in excruciating detail [over here](https://waspabi.tumblr.com/youngguns). It may also interest you to have a key to the in-universe names of the teams which can be found at the end of the post [here](https://ionthesparrow.dreamwidth.org/473.html). There's also an intensely disorganised playlist [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/shesupintrees/playlist/0kd2Gr34Jvi51ZVnyXdXi6?si=oNgjtp5JR0eu01NrI0OwOA), and a tag will be growing for this series [here](http://waspabi.tumblr.com/tagged/young-guns).
> 
> I'm not done with this universe yet, and if you're interested in world-building, insufferable theoretical discussions about the body, truly minute research and exploring shifting relationship dynamics you can find me at kwaspabi at gmail.


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